Shadows of Ashland

by Austin,Robin

  As soon as I step from my car, I’m struck by the smell of feces and slaughter. Sticky black mud seeps over the rim of my shoes as I take unsteady steps past rotted fences and trees that remind me of old men: strong but gnarled and defeated.

  A man, taller and stockier than Calvin, is inside one of the pens. He stops what he’s doing to check me out. I start to wave but he looks away, returns to his work. My shoes are ruined and I dread not the walk before me, but the distance I’m putting between myself and my car.

  “Mr. Cohoon?” I yell, hoping he will come out, meet me halfway. He’s watching again and his face looks angry. His clothes are coated with mud; I hope that’s all anyway.

  “Hello. I’m Jan Abbott. The writer? We have a meeting scheduled today.” His face is now one of disgust.

  “I know who you are.” He drops a shovel and exchanges it for an ax before unfastening the gate. He spits back at the pig pen and a few of them rush in the direction it lands. I vow never to eat bacon again.

  Swinging his axe, he loses no time coming straight at me. I consider running to my car.

  “Ask your questions,” he yells. In seconds, he’s standing next to me. His eyes are fiery and troubled, his shoulders are as thick as a linebacker’s, his back as bent as the trees.

  “I know this is….” I can’t think because the axe is slowly swinging at his side. What’s the word I need? Unpleasant? His whole life must be that. Inconvenient? I give up and just say, “I’ll keep it short. Unless you’d like me to come back another time.”

  He rubs his stubbly chin and runs his eyes from my chest to my shoes where he pauses to chuckle before taking a slow ride back up to my chest. “Naw, now’s fine.”

  “Do you mind if I record our conversation? It will be a lot quicker than writing it out.” He agrees to this.

  I give him a condensed version of my purpose in writing the article about Eunice; recapping what I already said in our three minute phone conversation the week before. He nods like he understands.

  Roger tells me he’s five years older than Eunice. He remembers she didn’t talk but cried all the time. That she was stupid and lazy.

  “Daddy had to beat her a lot. Deserved what she got. Momma? She was too busy with her chores and the rest of us. I don’t want to talk about them. Got their own damn lives now. They’re not interested in the pigs, the goddamn farm, or Eunice either. If you want to know what they think, ask them yourself.”

  He pauses his rantings about his wayward siblings then looks at me like he’s forgotten I’m there.

  “Had to get rid of her,” he says, under his breath like he’s talking about one of the pigs. Then he looks away, quietly adding, “Put her some place they could take care of her, try to fix her some.”

  “Does your family have any history of mental illness?”

  He seems to consider this while staring at the ground then looks up with a huge grin showing off what’s left of his yellowed and blackened teeth. “We’re all a little crazy, I guess you’d say.” This he thinks is quite funny. The laughter turns to coughing and spitting.

  I glance at my questions, ones about John’s arrest and suicide, his brother’s possible abuse of Eunice, what he remembers about his sister when he used to visit Ashland, if he ever met Matilda, and what significance there might be in rubies. I want to ask, but I can’t speak. I can hear screams that I know aren’t there, see shadows that I know are.

  After wiping his face on his shirt sleeve, Roger steps closer to me. He’s taking deep breaths, he’s smelling me.

  I go to step back but one of my shoes is stuck in the mud and I stumble around and right into him. He grabs my arm, his muddy hand makes a print on my jacket, his body presses into mine.

  “I’m sorry.” I yell this so loud we’re both startled. I pull away, reach for my shoe and hobble backwards nearly falling to the ground. “That’s all the questions I have. Thank you for your time.” I don’t recognize my voice. “Thank you, Mr. Cohoon. I’ll let you get back to work.”

  I’ve managed to shove my foot in my mud-filled shoe and am almost to my car when Roger yells for me to hold up. I turn and see him rushing towards me, scurrying in the mud quick as a cockroach. He’s removed his cap and a thick black band crosses his forehead; one that maybe has never been wiped clean.

  I keep walking, my head pounds, my keys slip in my sweaty fingers, the mud slows my steps and threatens to take me down.

  “Let me toss this inside,” I say, raising my bag. My hands shake and my keys jingle as I jab the lock then open the door.

  Roger’s already beside me; his dark leathery hand halts the door. The other hand still holds the axe. It’s coated in the same rust color as the buildings.

  “Tell my sister hello for me, will you?”

  “Of course.” I’m trembling and trying to open the door enough to slide in, but it won’t budge under the pressure of his grip.

  “Used to go see her all the time. Bring her jerky to calm her down some, keep her from hollering. Girl did like to holler.”

  Roger looks at the ground and shakes his head, makes a sound somewhere between a grunt and a chuckle then looks up. “Got busy is all. Ain’t been back lately, but I still think of her, wonder about her.”

  Roger is staring past me, far into the distance, his eyes have turned to saucers, the same as Eunice’s. He licks his lips and adjusts himself, leaving mud on his dirty jeans.

  I attempt to move the door again, but he’s holding it firm. “When was the last time you saw your sister?” My voice is dry but soft, comforting, reassuring; a practiced voice to calm difficult patients.

  He pauses then looks at me in the way most women don’t want to be seen, not for free anyway. I can hear his breath, smell the decay.

  “Been a while,” he says, and winks. He opens my door slowly, proving he can do it just as he pleases. A sickening grin spreads as I move to get into the car.

  I reach to pull the door shut, but he holds it still and moves to the opening. “Mr. Cohoon…” I try to calm my voice and look away from the erection that bulges in his pants just inches from my face.

  “I’ll tell Eunice I met you. I’ll tell her you’re doing good. I know she’ll be happy to hear that. Is there anything else you want me to tell her?”

  Roger hunches forward, nightmare-eyes me. Then his eyes go sad and his jaw tightens. His ax sways by his leg as he stares at my face without seeing it– a trance-like state, an unpredictable mind.

  “Mr. Cohoon,” I say, tugging at the door handle.

  He smiles, laughs. “Drive carefully.” He steps back and pushes the door shut.

  I hit the door lock and maneuver through the mud, watch him in my rearview mirror, watch him watching me.

  In the distance, the last thing I see is the axe raised high in the air. The last thing I hear is the screaming pigs. I know I’m too far away to really hear them. I want to believe those screams aren’t real.

  Chapter Six

  §

  I’m fifteen minutes away from the Cohoon farm when I pull over, hang my head out the window, and take deep breaths. It’s starting to rain again and the dark clouds are promising more. I lean back and watch the drops splash on the windshield and occasionally, I glance in the rearview mirror. I think I know why Eunice stares at the wall.

  There are two messages on my phone. One from Rick checking in to see how things are going and to tell me that he’s working late tonight. The other is from Melissa Palmer saying we need to talk before I proceed further with the article. Now I regret the trip to meet Roger even more.

  Matrix Media is an online company with four news sites. Palmer is the CEO. Three of the four are entertainment-slash-traffic bait sites, at least in my opinion.

  I’ve been hired to write for The Vanguard Psychiatrist. I didn’t know there was a new, cutting-edge psychiatry, but I’m sure it includes being socially connected, cloud hosted, gender neutral, and crowd sourced.

  Palmer, just twenty eight, is its perfect comma
nder. One of the new breed of women, she is wildly driven to champion this mental health reform as long as advertisers are buying it. She’s successful, tough, and a single random comment away from her next argument, which she’d rather die than lose.

  According to Palmer’s bio, she’s a Harvard graduate, married to a tech-exec whose Google search returns over three million hits (this I find out on my own), and the mother of two children, safely sequestered in anonymity.

  Palmer talks fast, refuses interruptions, and stares me in the eye even though she’s never seen me. I want to talk to her right now as much as I want to return to the Cohoon Pig Farm and chat with horny, axe swinging Roger.

  I’ve been given a small advance and reimbursement of expenses at fifty percent. The four hour roundtrip commute is, in Palmer’s words, not enough to expense hotel accommodations. Her powers are not limited to blatant bitchiness, she can also turn nouns into verbs in a fractured microsecond.

  Palmer’s terms are not negotiable, but the assignment pay is… I was thinking generous, but it’s probably more likely based on the size of her ego. It didn’t take long to determine that Matrix Media’s profits pale in comparison to its online hype, but then appearances are what matter most.

  I’ve already made arrangements to visit Eunice, and hopefully Matilda too, at four. That gives me little more than an hour to return to the hotel, shower, trash a favorite pair of shoes, and drive to Ashland or home should I learn that Rodham has demanded I never return.

  I find Matrix in my phone and hit send. “Yes, this is Jan Abbott. Is Ms. Palmer available? I’m returning her call.”

  I pull the car onto the country road, a sudden wind sprays the rain, mud grips and spins the tires as I cross onto asphalt, and I let them. The dagger woman has me acting reckless.

  “Melissa— of course. I understand. Okay. I can hold— Yes. Monday at two. Three’s fine.”

  I disconnect the call and focus on the road. I’m not fired. Though I can’t tell exactly what I am. The woman is perpetually pissed. Multi-tasking herself into a manic state.

  Rodham has some concerns. An anal asshole, she called him, and for a second I thought she was on my side. Then she told me not to screw this up. She needs this story. She says needs in the way one might say she needs a gun to kill a tiger that’s about to lunge or the way a drug addict needs her next fix. I wonder at what age she will finally hit the wall and get smacked upside the head by reality.

  Before she passed me off to her assistant to schedule a conference call, she warned me to stick to the guidelines. She’s made herself perfectly clear, she reminded me then reminded me again.

  “Analyze the damn facts and find the human interest story that supports it. Don’t make this complicated. It isn’t.” She emphasizes human interest story and calls Eunice that Cohart woman. “Make it personal,” she demanded. “I want readers to feel what that multi feels.”

  Her assistant came on the line before I had a chance to respond to the Cohart multi comment. Before I could tell her that multis are complicated or ask her how she could possibly know how anyone feels.

  I finally reach civilization, which is exactly ten thousand miles from the world inhabited by Roger Cohoon. Despite my crazed rushing at the hotel, it’s past four when I drive through the iron gates at Ashland. Dinner is at five. I was told Eunice sometimes likes to watch TV in the rec room the hour before, so I could join her there.

  “You mean Matilda?” I’d asked the nurse who scheduled my visit. I’m certain Eunice possesses neither the concept of time nor the ability to make decisions as to how she spends any of it. The nurse ignored my question, a learned behavior. One of survival.

  I sign in and start to go to the rec room when the desk nurse asks me to wait. When I first met with Rodham, I was given a tour of the facility. He wanted me to feel welcome, according to him. So far, that’s not working out as anticipated.

  “One of the attendants…” the nurse checks a note she has hidden under a calendar. “Aljala, will escort you,” she says.

  “I see,” I say, with a smile that isn’t returned.

  After several minutes, a man with a wide grin greets me in the lobby. His long, kinky hair is twisted in dozens of strands that stand straight up on their own volition, giving him a natural facelift. His eyes light up as though he’s waited his entire life to meet me. He’s more out of place at Ashland than I am.

  “I take you to see Ms. Eunice,” he says. The words, loud and clear, lull off his tongue, thick and rich in an accent I recognize as perhaps Jamaican. He sweeps his arm wide in the direction of the rec room, bows, and laughs.

  Eunice is sitting in a chair by the window, staring into space, not watching the television. I have less than a half hour to talk to her, or just sit beside her if I can’t entice Matilda to join us.

  “Ms. Eunice, my dear one. Your friend, Jan, has come for a visit,” Aljala says. He brings me a chair, flashes his pearl white teeth, and takes a seat a few feet away. I’m not fired, but it appears I now have my own personal escort.

  “Hi, Eunice. Nice to see you again.” She doesn’t acknowledge me. “I wanted to let you know that I went out to the pig farm to visit your brother today.”

  I’m busy getting my notebook in order and finding a pen in my purse. I don’t notice until I look up that I’ve gotten Eunice’s attention. She’s looking at me like she actually understands what I was saying. I recognize the cold silence that indicates it’s not Matilda beside me. I’m relieved though. Roger may be the key I need to get inside Eunice’s head.

  “Roger wanted me to say hello for him and to tell you he misses seeing you. He’s very busy with the farm, but he wants you to know he thinks about you and hopes you’re doing good. I told him I think you’re doing wonderfully.”

  I smile but I’m feeling nauseated. Eunice is boring holes into my face, and I feel Aljala boring holes into my back.

  I lean forward and lower my voice. “Eunice? Did you understand what I said?”

  Honestly, the woman is scaring me. Except for her twitching eyelid, she’s as still as a corpse. Since her expression doesn’t really change, it’s impossible to guess what might be going on in her head, if anything at all. Clearly though, I have her attention. I just have to figure out what to do with it.

  “You remember your brother, don’t you?”

  Nothing from her but the twitching. I write a few notes hoping to break the spell by not looking at her. When I look up, she’s the same.

  “Your brother. Roger?”

  I have only fifteen minutes left, no time to be coy. I lean in again so my chaperone doesn’t hear me. “I wonder if I might speak to Matilda. Would that be possible? Just for a couple of minutes.”

  “Pigs.”

  “What?” It’s Eunice who spoke. Her voice was barely a whisper and as mechanical as Matilda’s, but without an ounce of sultry charm.

  “Pigs? Yes, there are certainly a lot of pigs on the farm. Your brother works very hard to take care of them. Roger does a great job taking care of the pigs.”

  I go back to writing in my notebook, feeling Eunice’s eyes, wishing the Southern belle would make an appearance before I have to leave.

  “Bloody pigs!”

  Eunice screams so loud, I jerk up, drop my notebook, and nearly tip over in my chair. I’m up and so is Eunice and she’s making a sincere effort to pull out her hair while continuing to scream.

  Aljala is beside her as I stand senseless. He’s soothing her, holding her hands, patting her hair back in place, and soon her screams and hair pulling cease.

  Over Eunice’s frenzy and my own panic, I failed to notice that others are also screaming and chairs have been upended. Another attendant struggles to calm patients who are haphazardly slapping themselves and each other as they go into meltdown.

  Aljala is telling me over the chaos that Eunice needs to rest now. “I take her to her room. You come back tomorrow. She gets herself all upset. No worries. Come back tomorrow. She will forget her
troubles by then.”

  He leads Eunice out of the room and I start to follow, but Billy the moaner has joined the screamers and he’s coming my way. A third attendant gives me a bug eyed-snarl as Billy rushes and sinks his teeth into the man’s arm. Louder screams from both have me backed up against the wall, working my way to the exit.

  By the time I get to the front desk, patients have scattered in every direction and nurses descend to coax them upstairs to their rooms. Recreation time is officially over.

  I huddle at the door for someone to come and let me out. When a nurse returns, she shoots me an ugly sneer, and raises her thick arm to point at the door. I grab the handle and flee into the damp, dusky evening.

  As I run to my car, I can’t tell if the screaming I still hear is coming from Eunice or the pigs or my own rattled mind.

  Chapter Seven

  §

  I end my day from hell with a gin and tonic and curly fries in the hotel bar. They seem the perfect catalyst to purge the events of the day from my mind and stomach, the latter of which has become the epicenter of my distress.

  Any hope I have of getting to know Eunice must be put on the backburner if not scrapped altogether. With plans to return home tomorrow for the weekend, I’m running out of time to get anything close to what Palmer thinks she needs.

  Full and happy life my ass. Eunice is a deeply disturbed woman. I can’t imagine the conversation Palmer will have with Rodham over this evening’s mayhem.

  The bartender brings another gin and tonic and I open my laptop. Reluctantly, I decide Matilda is as good as it’s going to get to get this assignment done and over with. Truth be damned. I’m willing to write just about anything she conjures up.

  I Google Davenport in Ruston then a few surrounding towns when I find none locally. Then I spend too much time on Facebook doing the same. An ancestry site claims to have ten Matilda Davenports from the 1800’s. I decline the fee to access them.