Lightning Bug

by Donald Harington

  “Would you like to go for a ride today, honey?” Mandy would ask, and wait, and wait.

  Once when you were in the bathtub (and the lock had never been replaced on the door) Vaughn came in and sat on the edge of the tub and gazed at you. “Caint tell me to get out, can you?” he taunted you. “Caint even open you damn mouth long enough to say ‘Get out,’ can you?” You just glared at him. “All righty,” he said, “I’ll just sit right here and feast my eyes until you’re finished.”

  It was not that you were deliberately holding yourself incommunicado, Bug. You were not consciously refusing to speak to them. It was simply (maybe not so simply) that you were unable to speak to them. Occasionally, there were times you wanted something, like a particular medicine for some distress, but you were unable to open your mouth and ask for it.

  They ceased trying to get you to speak. They began to pretend you were not there, and to talk about you in your presence.

  “She don’t really want that baby.”

  “Of course she don’t. She’s ashamed of it, I bet.”

  She won’t even talk to her own baby. What kind of mother is that? Pore little Fannie Mae, she needs somebody to sweet-talk her and baby-talk her.”

  “She’s so stubborn and standoffish she won’t even talk to her own baby.”

  “What kind of mother is that?”

  “She don’t really want it.”

  “’Course she don’t.”

  “She’d be a lot happier without it.”

  “Sure she would.”

  “Maybe it would be happier too, if she weren’t around.”

  “More’n likely.”

  But still they would occasionally stare at you and study your face and bite their lips or chew their thumbnails.

  One day they took you and put you in the car and said they were going for a ride.

  They drove you out to a park, and through the park to a group of large white buildings on a hill. They took you into one of these buildings. In a room was a desk with a man in a white jacket sitting behind it and they tried to get you to sit down at the desk. Wordlessly, you broke and ran. Mandy and Vaughn took your arms and brought you back. You shook your head and shook your head and shook your head.

  “Please sit down,” the man said, and came around from behind his desk and pushed down on your shoulder to make you sit. Then he returned to his seat behind the desk and looked at the papers in front of him. “You can talk to me,” he said. “Will you tell me your name?”

  You would not.

  “I told you her name,” Mandy said. “It’s Latha Bourne.”

  The man frowned at her. “Will you two leave the room, please?”

  When they were gone, he said, “Now, I already know your name. You can talk to me, I know. Will you tell me your age?”

  You spoke. “Almost twenty-one.”

  “Good,” he said, and wrote something on the paper. “Now, do you know why your sister and brother-in-law have brought you here?”

  You shook your head.

  “Now, now,” he chided. “I’ll bet you do. I’ll bet you think it’s because they’re trying to get rid of you. Am I right?”

  “Are they?” you asked, puzzled. “I don’t know. Are they?”

  “No,” he said. “They are not. Why do you think they have brought you here?”

  “I really don’t know,” you said.

  “Oh come now, Miss Bourne. Really. Do you know what place this is?”

  “A hospital?”

  “Do you know what kind of hospital?”

  You shook your head.

  “Really now,” he said. “If you don’t know what kind of hospital it is, why did you break loose and try to run away when you were brought in?”

  “I…I was frightened,” you said.

  “Of what, Miss Bourne? Of what were you frightened?”

  “I…I don’t…really know….”

  “Was it perhaps you were frightened that we might keep you?”

  You lowered your head and nodded it.

  “Very good. So I’m sure you can tell me what place this is, can’t you? Try to tell me, Miss Bourne,”

  “Is it…is it an…an insane asylum?”

  “There!” he exclaimed, beaming broadly. “I knew you could tell me. Now, I’ll bet you think that there’s no reason why you should be here. Am I right?”

  “You are right.”

  “But I am told that you have not spoken a word to anybody for nearly two months. Why is that, Miss Bourne? Are you perhaps feeling angry at the world?”

  “Not the world. Just them.”

  “Why are you mad at them, Miss Bourne?”

  “They’re trying to take my baby away from me.”

  “Why would they want to do that?

  “They want her.”

  “Don’t you think that it might be because they are concerned for the baby? Don’t you think that they might feel you are not in the best mental condition for taking care of the child?”

  “That’s not true!”

  “I understand that you don’t even communicate with your child, Miss Bourne. Do you think that’s good for the child?”

  “I try to talk to her! I just can’t talk to her when they’re around. Often at night when they’re asleep I talk to her.”

  “I understand that the child is illegitimate, Miss Bourne. Perhaps you feel some guilt for your error, and this guilt is being reflected in your conduct toward the child.”

  “I love her! I take very good care of her!”

  “A child needs a father, Miss Bourne.”

  “I’ll marry somebody!” you said.

  The man’s voice became cold. “I understand further, Miss Bourne, that when the child was still in your womb you pounded your fists upon your abdomen repeatedly, as if you were trying to kill the child.”

  “I didn’t want it then. But I want it now. Oh, I want her so!”

  The man signed his name at the bottom of a sheet of paper and said, “I am recommending, Miss Bourne, that you remain with us for observation.”

  “You can’t do this to me!” you protested. “You have no right to do this to me! I’m as sane as you are!”

  “But I should point out that, legally, you are still a minor, and your older sister has signed papers appointing her your legal guardian. In the eyes of the law, Miss Bourne, she is perfectly within her rights to have you committed.”

  “She’s just trying to get rid of me, so she can have the baby!”

  “I knew you would feel that way, Miss Bourne, but you are mistaken. It is the child that we are concerned for. Our job is not merely to help people with mental problems, but also to protect the rest of society from them until they can return to their responsibilities; therefore—”

  You stood up and began backing away from the doctor’s desk. He pressed a button on his desk. You turned and ran to the door. You twisted the knob but it would not open. Another door opened and two men in blue jackets came into the room and took you by the arms. You struggled. You yelled.

  “Please go along peacefully,” the man behind the desk said, “or else we might have to use force.”

  You continued yelling and struggling.

  They used force and took you away to a cell, and locked you in it.

  You tried to cry, Bug, alone in your cell you tried with all your might to cry, but you would not be able to cry for another seventeen years.

  You spent three weeks in B Ward.

  You were transferred to C Ward, where you spent five months.

  After six months, at Christmastime, Mandy and Vaughn came for a visit, bringing candy and flowers, but without Sonora.

  You fell down on your knees before them and raised your hands in supplication. “Please get me out of here!” you begged. “Please! I’ll do anything for you! I’ll cook for you! I’ll sweep for you! I’ll do everything for you! Please get me out of here!”

  “See!” Mandy said to Vaughn. “I told you she was just playing possum. I told you she
could really talk, if she put her mind to it.”

  “Please, please, please, oh please….” you pled.

  “No,” she said. “You’d be a bad influence on the baby.”

  You were transferred to D Ward.

  FOUR: Evening

  Dear Heavenly Father, we thank Thee for this food, the yield of Thy gracious bounty, and for the loving hands that hath prepared it and brought it before us. Bless those hands, Lord, and bestow Thy loving grace and kindness upon her who uses them to enrich Thy bounty for the pleasure of our mouths and the strength of our bodies. Bless also, we pray, this lovely girl, her niece; keep her near Thy heart; do not let her stray far from Thy hand. And finally, Lord, bless me Thy servant; strengthen me; grant me the power to meet what comes my way. In Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.”

  “Have some beans, Every.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Pickles?”

  “Don’t care for any, thank you.”

  “Sweetening for your iced tea?”

  “No, thank you. I’ll declare, Latha, I never thought I’d see the day I’d be drinking iced tea in Stay More. How do you do it?”

  “Well, the mail truck brings ice from Jasper, and twice a month a truck from Harrison comes through with lemons and other fruit. Have some potatoes.”

  “Thank you. Sonora, you care for any pickles?”

  “Thank you. I’ll bet they’re Dill pickles, why don’t you have some yourself?”

  “Ha! Now don’t you go poking fun at me too, young lady. Has your m—has your Aunt Latha told you that everybody used to call me ‘Pickle’ when I was a kid?”

  “Just because of your name? Or because you were sour?”

  “Dill pickles aren’t really sour, are they? I reckon I was pretty full of vinegar, though. And I was kind of pickle-faced too, wasn’t I, Latha?”

  “You sure weren’t much to look at,”

  “Maybe you’re still full of vinegar,” Sonora said. “How’d you get that shiner?”

  “That what?” he said, and “Oh,” he said and raised his fingers to his blackened eye. “You mean this? Well, I’ll tell you. I was so busy tacking up my posters on trees this morning that I didn’t watch where I was going, and ran plumb head-on into a big elm sapling.”

  “I’ve got a slab of beef you can lay on that eye after supper,” Latha said, “and maybe it will go away. You’d look just fine preaching a revival meeting with a black eye and all those bruises.”

  “I tore my britches, too,” he said, “and my coat-tail barely covers it. Could you lend me some needle-and-thread?”

  “I’ll patch them up for you myself,” she offered.

  “How’d you rip the back of your britches running head-on into an elm sapling?” Sonora asked.

  He laughed. “Well, that is pretty complicated. It was like this: when I smacked into that elm sapling it kind of bent over and then sprung back and flung me right up against a barbed-wire fence. My, Latha, these sure are fine pork chops!”

  “You think it’s right for a preacher to tell big fibs?” Sonora asked with a grin.

  “Why, no,” he said. “It’s sure not right, at all. But depends on what you mean by a fib. For instance, tomorrow morning I’m going to stand up there in front of those people and I’m going to say to them—” Every began to imitate his own preaching voice “—my friends, you see this here black eye? And you see these bumps and bruises? And you see this here patch on my britches? Well, my friends, as I was coming into Stay More I met the Devil blocking my way and telling me he had Stay More in the palm of his hand and he wasn’t about to let me meddle with his territory. But I just said to him, ‘Get thee behind me, Old Harry!’ But Old Harry said to me, ‘Not without a fight first, by nab!’ So me and Old Harry just squared off right there in the road. Now, my friends, I’m afraid I caint tell you that I got the best of him, but he sure didn’t get the best of me, or else I wouldn’t be here to tell it to you!”

  Sonora shook with laughter, and Latha found herself laughing too, and marveling at a certain spell-binding quality in Every’s voice. He had made his point, she realized: it doesn’t matter that what you say is a ridiculous fib, if you say it right.

  “Well,” said Sonora, “I was thinking maybe there was some connection between your black eye and Latha’s red eyes.”

  “Now, there is, since you mention it. When she saw what a pitiful condition I was in, with all these bumps and bruises, she just broke down and blubbered. What’s the matter with you, girl, how come you’re not crying too at the sight of such a pore ole battered-up man?”

  “Maybe I don’t love you as much as she does,” Sonora said. Every choked on a bite of pork chop and blushed deeply. “But I might,” Sonora said, “if you’d stop telling fibs.”

  When Every regained his composure and coughed the dab of pork chop out of his windpipe, he said, “All right. That’s a deal.”

  “Really?” Sonora said.

  “No more fibs,” he said. He crossed his heart.

  “Okay,” she said. “Who did you get into a fight with?”

  “I don’t know if you’d know him,” he said.

  “I might,” she said. “If he was a tall fellow with light hair riding a big roan mare that’s tied to the post out front.”

  “You got him,” Every said.

  “Okay, why did you get him?”

  “Well, I reckon you might say we were quarreling over a certain lady.”

  “Is that the reason the lady has red eyes?” Sonora asked.

  “No.”

  “Then why does she?”

  “Mercy, gal, are you going to give me the third-degree all night? You’re spoiling my supper.” He glanced at Latha and said, “I think maybe I’d best let her answer that.”

  “All right,” Latha said. “We were just talking over old times, honey. You know how it is. It makes you sad to think of old times.”

  “It must have been awfully, awfully sad to make you cry,” Sonora said.

  “It was,” Every said, and his voice was severe. “Saddest damn thing you ever heard.”

  “Do preachers swear?” Sonora asked with surprise.

  “Sometimes they just have to,” he said.

  “Tell me what it was that could make a preacher swear,” Sonora asked.

  “Latha?” he said.

  “Honey,” she said to Sonora, “it isn’t any of your concern.”

  Every brought his palms together and looked up at the ceiling. “Father, forgive us all our fibs. Amen.” But his voice was serious.

  “There is only one thing worse than telling a fib,” Latha said, “and that is breaking a promise. So there. That is that, and let’s talk about the weather. Maybe it will rain tomorrow.”

  “I don’t care,” Sonora said. “I know anyway.”

  “Have some more cornbread, Every.”

  “Thank you. Could you pass me the butter, Sonora?”

  “Here!”

  After supper she went out to do her evening chores, leaving Every and Sonora discussing the difference between his religion and hers—or rather that of Mandy, who had joined an Episcopal church in Little Rock. “I just can’t stand all that fancy ritual,” Sonora was saying to him as Latha went out. While she was feeding the hogs, she realized she was not really worried that Every would tell Sonora anything; after all, he had promised her he would not. But all this business of promises was becoming rather ridiculous anyway; that girl could sit there at the table and look across the table and see her own features written all over the face of the man sitting there talking to her. What worried Latha was not that Every would give anything away, but that Sonora would back him into a corner and try to make him confess what she had already guessed on her own. Still I will never break my promise, she determined. As she was milking Mathilda, she realized she was working too fast, as if she were eager to finish her chores and get back to the house. Relax, girl, she said to herself. Give father and daughter a chance to get acquainted. She began to move more slowly
, and to take her time.

  While she was feeding her chickens, she heard a commotion coming from the front yard, and she went around the house to investigate, wondering if it had something to do with Dolph. But Dolph’s horse was gone, and so was he. It was just the W.P.A. boys and the local boys having their nocturnal free-for-all, for Sonora’s audience. Every came running out of the house and saw the fight and ran out into the midst of the ruckus and began separating the battlers, grabbing them by their shirt collars and pulling them off one another, and saying, “Here now, what’s this all about? Here now, let’s break it up a minute!”

  He had trouble separating Junior Duckworth from Clarence Biggart, and when he finally succeeded, Junior grabbed him by his shirt front and said, “Who in hell are you, you ole geezer?”

  Sonora, from her throne on the porch, laughed and said, “He’s my father, and he can lick all of you guys put together, if you don’t watch out!”

  “Sonora!” Latha said to her.

  Junior removed his grip from Every’s shirt front and offered his hand. “Gee, sir, I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know who you was.”

  Every said, “Sonora’s just a-foolin you. I’m not her dad, but I might just have to lick y’all all together if you don’t knock it off. Now tell me, what’s all this rumpus about, anyhow?”

  “It’s his fault,” Junior said, pointing to J.D. Pruitt. “He hit me first.”

  Clarence Biggart said, pointing to Junior, “Burl Coe put im up to it. He darred im to trip ole J.D. and ole J.D. couldn’t do nuthin but hit im fer it.”

  “Well, why are all the rest of you fellers fightin?” Every asked.

  “Aw, we aint fightin serious,” Earl Coe put in. “It aint a real fraction. We’uns was just horseplayin, to show them damn Dubya Pee Ayers who rules the roost around here.”

  “No need somebody gettin hurt for that,” Every said. “If all you want to do is find out who rules the roost, why don’t y’all just hold a Indian wrasslin?”

  “Whut’s thet?” Junior asked.

  “You aint never Indian-wrassled?” Every asked. “Well, come over here to the porch and I’ll show you.” He and Junior sat down in opposite directions on the porch steps and Every put their arms up together, elbows down on the cement step, and their hands clenched. “Now the idee,” Every said, “is to see if you can force my hand down and I try to force your hand down. Winner’s strongest. Not only is he strongest but he’s also got the most will power and spunk. Okay. Here we go.”