Lightning Bug

by Donald Harington

  “What, a revenuer?” he asked.

  “No, a moonshiner,” she said.

  “Aw, heck, Latha,” he said. “You can’t read signs. Don’t you know what this signifies? Sarah asked me to pray, didn’t she? That means the Lord is telling me that my true vocation is praying for folks! That means he wants me to pray for that poor revenuer, to strengthen my true vocation as a preacher.”

  And Every knelt immediately on the porch and said, “Dear Heavenly Father, I thank Thee for this sign. With earnest heart I ask Thee to look after that afflicted revenuer and preserve his life. Grant, O Lord, swiftness and skill to Doc Swain. Show Luther Chism the error of his ways, but protect and deliver him from any trouble with the government. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.”

  The closing words of his prayer were nearly drowned beneath the sound of Doc Swain’s car roaring up the road. The engine roared, then coughed, then roared again, spluttered, belched, roared, coughed: the car came into view, jerking and bucking. It came abreast of the post office, roaring, then spluttered and died. Doc Swain tried to start it again. It would not start.

  Doc Swain jumped out of his car and kicked it viciously with his foot. “Goddamn scandalous hunk of cruddy tinfoil!” he yelled and kicked it again. “Sonabitchin worthless gas-eatin ash can!” Then he turned wildly about, yelling, “A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!”

  “Here’s your true sign, Every,” Latha said to him. “The Lord wants you to be a doctor.”

  “Naw,” he said, “I’m afraid it’s something else.”

  “A horse?”

  “Get me a lantern, quick,” he said.

  She went into the house and brought out a lantern. He took it and ran out to Doc Swain’s car. He gave the lantern to Doc Swain, saying, “Hold this.” Then he opened the hood of the car and bent over into the car’s innards. A minute passed. He said to Doc Swain, “Just set the lantern down on the fender and get in and try to start it.” Doc Swain did so.

  The car started right up, and the motor ran evenly. “Hey!” Doc Swain hollered. “Thanks a load, Every! What’d you do to it?”

  “Distributor cap had worked loose,” Every said.

  “Well, lucky you were here!” Doc Swain said. “I got to get out to Luther Chism’s. He’s shot a revenuer, the damn fool.” Doc Swain let out the clutch and roared away.

  Latha and Every returned to the porch and sat down again. Every was in a morose mood. She let several minutes pass before saying, “So that’s it. The Lord wants you to be an auto repairman.”

  Every said, “Maybe,” and nothing else.

  “Well,” she observed, “I guess it ought to be a good-paying line of work.”

  “Oh, it’s good-payin enough, all right,” he said.

  “You’ve done it before?” she asked.

  “Worked my way through Bible College working nights in a garage in Nashville,” he said. “And I’ve had to do a stretch of car work hither and yon from time to time, just to make ends meet. Preaching don’t pay enough to be called a job of work, ’less you settle down in a good-sized city with a big congregation, and I wouldn’t care for that.” He was silent again for a while, then he threw his head back and raised his voice so loudly she jumped. “Lord, what’re You tryin to tell me, Lord?” he demanded. “Don’t You want me, Lord? Don’t you need me anymore? Have I not been living up to Your expectations? Do You honestly want me to be nothing but a grease monkey?”

  He was staring so fixedly up at the sky that she let her own gaze follow his, as if she might find Somebody appearing up there. The sky was mulberry purple, and star-splattered. A star fell. Or a piece of one, a flaming fragment, leaving a trail. A falling star always means that somebody is dying. Maybe that poor revenuer. No, maybe it was—

  “What’s that mean?” Every asked her. “You remember all those old-time signs and portents, Latha. What do folks think a shooting star means?”

  “Falling, not shooting,” she corrected him. “Means somebody just died.”

  “That revenuer,” Every said. “Why, if he’s dead, then it means that me fixing Doc Swain’s car didn’t do any good anyhow, so that wasn’t the real sign the Lord meant to give me. Maybe there’s going to be another sign, the real one. I just caint believe the Lord would want me to fix cars the rest of my life.”

  “Maybe not the revenuer,” she said. “Maybe the one who just died was Preacher Every Dill. The preacher’s dead in you, Every.”

  “Don’t say that!” he protested. “That gives me the creeps.”

  “Do you still feel like a preacher right now?” she asked.

  “I don’t feel like anything,” he said. “I’m numb. Plumb numb.”

  “Let’s go into the house, and I’ll un-numb you,” she offered.

  He did not say anything, nor move.

  “Where are you going to stay tonight?” she asked.

  “Same place as last night,” he said.

  “On a pile of old dirty straw in the old home?” she said. “Why don’t you just stay here?”

  “I didn’t know you had any spare room, what with Sonora,” he said.

  “My bed is wide,” she said.

  “No,” he said.

  “Okay,” she said, “we’ll put a board down the middle and you can tie me up beforehand.”

  “No.”

  “I’ll even wear a nightdress for a change.”

  “No.”

  “Every,” she said in exasperation, “if you won’t sleep with me first I won’t marry you.”

  “And I tell you again,” he said, “that I will not sleep with you until I’ve married you.”

  “Well,” she said, “that’s that, I guess. Nice to’ve seen you again, Every. Come back again some time.”

  But he did not leave. Nor did he say anything. They just sat and sulked, both of them, for many minutes.

  Eventually he was the first to break it. He remarked, in a low voice, “I feel just plain miserable.”

  “Me too,” she said.

  They lapsed into silence again.

  By and by Doc Swain returned, and stopped his car in the yard and got out. He came up and sat with them on the porch.

  “Every,” he said, “the United States government ought to pin some kind of medal on you. Providing, of course, that that poor bastard ever gets back to tell them about it. Pardon my language, Reverend. Well, I declare, if you have learned to save souls the way you’ve learned to fix automobiles, I reckon it’s true enough that you’ve honestly been transformed and revamped.”

  “Is he all right?” Every asked.

  “Well, he won’t be sittin down for a right smart spell, but he can just lay on his belly. I dug about twenty 12-gauge shot out a his ass-end—pardon me, Latha—his backside is shore peppered up, but, all considering, he’ll live—though for what I don’t know, ’cause Luther still aint figgered out what to do with him.”

  “Why did Luther shoot him?” Latha asked. “That was plain stupid.”

  “Haw!” Doc Swain exclaimed. “Lost his temper momentarily, I imagine. Seems what happened was he caught that revenuer right in the old act of carnal congress with his gal Lucy. Caught him really with his britches down, and let fire with his shotgun before thinkin about it. Even nicked Lucy on the thigh too.”

  “I thought the revenuer was tied up,” Every said. “How could he have seduced Lucy if he was tied up?”

  “By dang if he aint still tied!” Doc Swain laughed. “He aint never been untied! Reckon Lucy had to unbutton his britches for him. But Luther claims the revenuer must’ve talked her into it, and that’s just the same as seducing her. I don’t doubt it, for that revenuer is shore a talkin fool; he could talk the hind leg off a donkey. No trouble talkin his own britches off. He come mighty near to talkin me into sendin him to a hospital, so he could get loose from Luther.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “And betray my own people?” Doc Swain demanded. “What do you think I am?”

  “Well, Luther can’t keep h
im forever, can he?”

  “Noo, but he aint about to let him loose before studying on the problem. Luther’s brains is kind of slow, you know.” Doc Swain stood up. “Well, I’m out way past my bedtime. Sure obliged to you, Every, for that quick repair job.”

  “Doc,” Every asked, “are you still the justice of the peace for Swains Creek township?”

  “I fergit,” Doc Swain said. “Seems like I am, but I aint jay-peed in so long I fergit whether my license is still up to date. But yes, come to think on it, I reckon it is. Why?”

  “Can you issue a marriage license?” Every asked.

  “Sure,” Doc Swain said. “Who for?”

  “Us,” Every said.

  “Who’s ‘us’?”

  “Me and her.”

  “By jabbers, it’s about time!”

  SUB FIVE: Now

  I am lost, O Bug.

  Even if I wanted to go back, and I do not, I could not find my way. I must be a mile up Ledbetter Mountain, beyond your orchard. A moment ago an owl hooted at me, and I peed in my pants. I have taken them off to dry. I am not running any more; if the gowrows and jimplicutes don’t get me, I will turn into a snawfus at midnight, then I will go back and bite Aunt Rosie’s head off, and see how she likes that. You know what she did to me. I can hardly sit down. But I promised you I would never tell on you, and I will never.

  Will you marry Every Dill? Then can I never be yours? When I become a snawfus, after I finish with Aunt Rosie, I would bite his head off too, but you wouldn’t love me for it, for he is dear to you. So I will just haunt these woods forevermore, protecting you, beheading with my teeth all your enemies. I shall immortalize you; you shall live forever, and when Every Dill must needs one day go to meet his Lord in heaven, you shall be mine.

  I shiver, though the night is hot. My fingers feel the goose bumps on my thighs, and not because they’re bare. Bear? Are there bears in these woods, if not gowrows and jimplicutes? Real things? I fear no boogers; I believe Tull Ingledew and trust him; there are no boogers; but real things? Bears and panthers and wolves and foxes and snakes and spiders. Which way did I come? That way, or that way? I put on my pants and run. I trip over a rotted log and fall. I cry. I cry unto you, O my beloved, come to me.

  You are abed, and hear me not. You are abed, alone abed, for all your blandishments and your cajolery and your admonition have failed to get him abed with you. He sleeps in the store, the next room, upon a pile of your bags of feed. He not alone sleeps but snores. Oh for crying out loud! you say to yourself, listening to his snores. This, then, you now enumerate as the third reason why you will not marry him, the other two being that he is so all-fired religious and that you have come to enjoy your independence—if you take him to husband, mightn’t he interfere with your operation of your business, for instance ordering Hershey bars in hot weather? At the moment, listening to his snores, Bug, the only good reason you can think for marrying him would be that it would increase the population of Stay More by one, and maybe one enough to dissuade the government from closing the post office.

  I have stopped crying. I have cried so much tonight there’s no water left in my tear ducts. I snuggle into a pile of old leaves and think I’m in hiding. I notice there aren’t any lightning bugs, up this high. They must prefer the bottom lands, low meadows, yards, the creek. It will soon be midnight, and I will change into a snawfus. It’s your fault you told me about snawfusses. And gowrows and jimplicutes. I feel very drowsy. We stayed awake so late last night, you and I, I’m not caught up on my sleep.

  Nor are you, and you awoke this morning long before I. But you sleep not, neither do you drowse. You attempt to listen to the night-noises of bugs and frog to blot out his infernal snoring. You would like to get up and go gag him. He gagged you once. Now we’re even, you could say to him.

  What you should have done, you are thinking, was to have taken recourse to a special old Ozark folk potion: a drop of your menstrual fluid in his drink, perchance his iced tea. Guaranteed to give an erection even to an octogenarian. You laugh aloud, thinking of it, and say to yourself: I’ll put a drop in his coffee at breakfast, and then he can’t give his sermon because of the bulge in his britches. But you don’t menstruate. Maybe Sonora does. But then he would fall in love with her. That’s the way it works. A funny thought further amuses you in your insomnia: what if he had fallen in love with her without knowing she was his daughter, and have married her?

  Thinking thus of Sonora, you are rather surprised to hear her own voice, outside your door, saying, “Mother?” You don’t reply. Then she says, a little louder, “Latha, are you awake?”

  You get up and light your lantern. You don your houserobe and open the door. “Something wrong, honey?” you say.

  She glances beyond you at the bed, and says, “No. I heard you laughing. And there’s somebody inside the store snoring something awful.”

  “That’s Every,” you explain. “And it is awful.”

  Sonora says, “Why didn’t you just tell him to sleep with you?”

  You smile and confess, “I did, but he wouldn’t.”

  “Gee,” she says. “That’s too bad. Maybe he can’t. Maybe he’s too old.”

  “Or just too holy,” you observe.

  “Me and Hank have busted up,” she declares.

  “Come on in,” you say, moving out of the door. “You want to talk about it?”

  She sits on your bed. “We had a spat on account of him, on account of Every.”

  “Oh?” you wonder.

  “Uh-huh,” she says, hanging her head. “I told him that Every is really my father, and he said if that’s true then he can’t love me any more, and I said why not? and he said because all the Ingledews are sworn enemies of Every Dill, and Hank’s dad and uncle would hate him if he married a girl who was kin to Every, let alone his daughter.”

  “You shouldn’t have told him Every was your father,” you admonish, “that wasn’t right.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t right, but it’s true,” she says. “Isn’t it?”

  You don’t reply.

  “Okay,” she says. “I ’spose they forced you to vow you’d never tell me. So I won’t try to make you. But I just want to say I’m glad. I want him to be my father. I like him a whole lot. Compared with him, Daddy is—Vaughn is a…a klunk…a jerk, a boob. Are you going to marry him?”

  You answer, “I don’t think so. Probably not.”

  “You don’t really love him?” she asks.

  “Well—” you hesitate, “I’m not so sure. I haven’t had time yet to tell. Today’s the first I’ve seen of him in years.”

  “Mother, was he really the one who robbed the bank?”

  “I wish you’d not call me Mother.”

  She hangs her head and mutters, “I caint call you anything else any more.”

  You feel near tears again, but you bite your lip and hold back. You place a hand on her shoulder, and speak gently, “All right, honey, call me anything you like. But just don’t ask me if he robbed the bank. Nobody knows except the one who did it, and he didn’t look like anyone I’d ever seen before, because he was disguised.”

  “Hank says his dad is going to make Every confess. But what if he offered to pay it back?…How much was it?”

  “Around eight thousand dollars.”

  She whistles. “My gosh, he’d never be able to raise that much, unless he robbed another bank. But you and me could help. When I finish high school next year I’ll get a job, and—”

  “Sonora,” you say, “let’s not cross that bridge till we get to it. Let’s just wait and see what happens. Maybe Every will go away for good.”

  “Oh, don’t let him do that!” she cries. “Please marry him.” She adds: “For me.”

  You sigh. “We’ll see,” you promise. “Maybe soon.”

  Abruptly she kisses you, then says, “Sweet dreams, Mother,” and leaves the room.

  You return to bed, but you do not sleep. You meditate: Three good reasons for not marr
ying him, and now one great reason for marrying him. For her. But what could come of it? Mandy and Vaughn would never let her go. She could never be their daughter. Even if Sonora insisted on it, even if she told Mandy and Vaughn she wouldn’t live with them any more, she was a legal minor—Just like I was, when I had her—and couldn’t do anything about it until she was twenty-one. And even if it did work out, Sonora might be in for a rude surprise when she discovers what a strict father Every would be.

  Oh, it was all so hopeless! Everything was so messed up it could never be untangled!

  The utter complication of the situation, plus your exhaustion, is what finally drives you to sleep.

  But your dreams are sweet, O Bug. Just as Sonora had bade you, your dreams are sweet.

  Here I give you as a gift, my beloved, the sweetest of your dreams:

  You wander in the wind in your orchard on Ledbetter Mountain, in the early eventide of a fine summer’s day, before gloaming. The wind holds your dark tresses aloft, suspending them in fluttering slow-motion. Your thighs tingle from the brushes of grass and flower-tops. You have reached yourself a peach from one of your trees, and the way it lusciously receives the bites of your teeth surpasses all sensuality. You can feel your stomach making love to it; your juices mate with its juices, and become one; that one imbues you, suffuses you with all its passion; you are sweeter than all peaches; your sweet passion leaves you convulsed with longing. You leap in the wind. You could open your thighs to anything that walks.

  You say, I will snatch the first creature I see.

  He comes now into view, walking down into the orchard from the mountain. He seems in no hurry to get anywhere, as if He were just out for a stroll. He catches sight of you, and approaches. He looks a lot like Every, you think. Yes, an awful lot—though His hair comes to His shoulders, and He is clothed in a white sheet, and barefoot.

  “Howdy, Stranger,” you say to Him, and offer Him a peach.

  “Howdy, ma’am,” He replies, and takes the peach and bites into it. “My,” He declares, “this sure is a mighty fine one. Elberta?”

  “That’s right,” you tell Him.