by Glen Krisch
"You can't just let time slip away, let your dark thoughts consume you, Mr. Jimmy."
"Darkness. That's all that's left, Harold."
"Memories, they're gifts. Even with no other hope, if you keep your dearest memories to think back on, well, you're better than dead. Ain't nobody, not Arthur Scully, or the Borland's, or Ethan Cartwright his ownself can take them memories away."
"Memories fade, you've said so yourself."
"Time drags, sure, dulls details, but--"
"Shut up, Harold. I don't want to hear it," Jimmy snapped, cutting off Harold's words. "Leave me alone."
Harold didn't respond. Though their corner of the old stables was completely dark, he could clearly hear Harold scurry along the floor until he was close enough that Jimmy thought the Negro would attack him.
Let him come at me, Jimmy thought. I don't care.
Harold fumbled his fingers along Jimmy's arm until he reached his hand. He pried open his fingers and placed something in his palm. Without a word or explanation, Harold went back to his resting spot and settled in. It was a while before Jimmy considered the blunt shape in his palm. He turned it over with his fingers. It was a coarse metal file no longer than his ring finger. Harold had given him a tool for escape, and also the briefest glimmer of hope.
10.
Breaking up the bunch beans was women's work, and Jacob was at the kitchen table doing just that. With a basket of beans at his feet, he was slicing with a paring knife against a cutting board to break the beans. In Jacob's opinion, cooking was and always would be women's work. He scowled under his breath as he reached for the basket and collected another fistful of beans.
After working nonstop from sunup to sunset yesterday, his mom was off to Calder's for kitchen staples. Before she left, she declared through a stifled yawn that she would catch up on some shuteye just as soon as she returned. Louise was outside chatting away with her friend Mary, ducking the cooking duties with the excuse that she needed to finish a needlepoint doily thingamabob before the baby arrived. They sat on a wooden bench in the shade of the house just outside the kitchen, doing their needlepoints. The shade was ten degrees cooler than inside the house, and as they sipped lemonade, they buzzed about their gossip like flies in a pigpen.
With Ellie gone, and the other women occupied, breaking the beans and other unseemly chores fell on him. Before turning in last night, Jacob and his mom went over to the Banyon place to drop off Ellie's clothes. Of course it had been just an excuse to make sure Ellie was okay and to see for themselves if Mr. Banyon's sobriety had lasted another night. Much to their surprise, the Banyon place looked like a different house when they walked in. The floors and walls were clean. There weren't any dirty dishes piled up. Mr. Banyon was sober, but still shaky and bleary eyed. Ellie looked at peace being at home. She'd even laughed when her dad pretended to steal her nose between his middle and index fingers. She was too old for such humor, but any humor shared between them seemed like the healing kind. Still, Jacob didn't trust him. Jacob wouldn't admit it aloud to anyone, but he sure missed that girl. Even though things had seemed to be fine last night, he'd promised himself to stop in now and again to keep an eye on things.
It wasn't long before the gusting wind died outside and he could hear the girls' conversation through the open kitchen window. "I think she might'a fallen off her rocker. She doesn't seem to have a care in the world." It was Louise speaking. Jacob got up from his chair and crept closer to the window. He couldn't wait to find out who was off their rocker. "I know if it was my son," Louise said, pausing, "Or my daughter that'd gone missing, I'd be a little more concerned than she's showing."
Anger welled inside Jacob. He was about to rush outside to confront Louise, when Mary broke in, "But you all know he enlisted. He told you he was leaving, and then word came up from Peoria."
"I know. I'm glad he's safe, even though I'm mad as heck with him. But Lord knows I couldn't raise a baby on my own. With him taking off'n my family turning their back on me, I just can't help feeling, I don't know, insulted? offended? that no one gives a darn. As soon as I found out Jimmy was okay, oh I knew I could forgive him when he comes home. I can't wait to kiss him again. If I close my eyes, I can imagine his lips on mine. Then I can't help feeling that… that swooning feeling."
"It has to be love," Mary said, and they laughed in their chatty way. Their laughter quieted down, replaced by the sound of needles puncturing fabric and threads pulled through chintzy mosaics.
"So, are you settled in?"
"Jane gave me her room, which was nice of her, even though I feel bad with her sleeping on the sofa. I'll be here until Jimmy gets home, whenever that is, and then we'll get a place of our own. Just the three of us," she said happily. "I know the house looks small, and compared to my parents' house, it's about the size of a tool shed, but I'm welcome here, and that's all that matters. They care for me. Me and the baby. Now, if I could just shake off this nausea."
"Can I do anything to help?"
"No, it just comes and goes. Right now, it's none too bad. Doc Thompson told me I'd just have to tough it out. He's probably just punishing me for not seeing him sooner."
"It's good he saw you."
"I know. It just makes it all too real. And a Halloween baby, to boot. It is real, isn't it?"
A contemplative silence seemed to end their conversing. Jacob went back to the table to finish the beans.
"What about Jacob, how's he been?" Mary asked.
Jacob's ear perked up again at hearing his name.
"Oh, he's a bit of a devil." Jacob came close to speaking out, but bit his tongue. "Even so, I've never had a little brother. I guess how he acts is normal."
"Sounds like a little brother to me."
"You should know, with what four now?"
They both laughed again. "Well, I think he's cute. Doesn't he have the nicest brown hair?" Mary said distantly.
"Who?"
"Well, Jacob Fowler, of course."
Jacob's face felt hot, full of fire. His pulse raced; he couldn't believe his ears. Sitting back at the kitchen table, he fidgeted with the bunch beans, already done with the pile. For some reason, he wanted to appear busy. He couldn't remember a time when he felt so embarrassed with no one else in the room.
It seemed like the girls had forgotten about discretion as the volume of their conversation increased. He could hear their conversation all the way over by the kitchen table.
"Mary, he's what, two years younger than you?"
"I know, but two years from now he won't even give me the time of day. He'll be courting girls who bat their eyelashes just so and wear the nicest clothes, and talk eloquent like."
He edged to the corner of his chair, just far enough to catch a glimpse of Mary's blonde hair through the window. It was curly, a bit too long to be stylish, but still nice. He wanted her to stand up, so he could see how tall she was. Even if she liked him, he didn't think he could ever drum up the nerve to talk to her if she were taller than him.
If Jimmy was here, he'd know what to do.
He didn't know if he liked Mary. He'd never thought about her in that way. She was just Louise's mousy friend who hovered around demurely asking Jacob what he was up to. Thinking back on it, she'd been giving off signals since visiting the day of Louise's arrival. This whole time he thought she'd just been acting polite.
The pickup truck chewed at the driveway, tearing away his attention. It was his mom, fresh home from Calder's. He gathered up the bean scraps, clearing the table clean. When she came through the door, she immediately saw his look of guilt.
"What now?" She handed him a crate of canned goods.
"Nothing. Just finished up the beans like you asked." He took the crate to a counter and began unloading it.
"You sure nothing's wrong?"
"Everything's fine. How was the market?" he asked, trying to distract her.
"Got everything on my list. When you're done there, can you get the ice from the truck?"
<
br /> "In a jiffy," Jacob said, heading for the front door.
A peal of laughter came from outside. Jacob looked over his shoulder cautiously, as if someone had told him to turn around with his hands up or he was going to get it.
From the look on her face, she suspected the reason for his harried expression. She held up an authoritative hand. "Jacob, wait a minute."
He rolled his eyes impatiently, but didn't leave.
"So, how do I let him know I like him?"
"Oh, Mary, there's ways of letting him know without letting him know you're letting him know."
Once again, the girls laughed. He wondered if their neighbors could plainly hear the conversation with them being so loud. His embarrassment would kill him if he didn't leave the house right away. His mom smiled at him. His cheeks burned hotter, the blush spreading like wildfire down his neck. Before his mom could say anything, he hastened out the door to fetch the ice from the truck bed.
Every day that passed without Jimmy's return, Jacob learned new ways to miss him.
11.
After carrying the ice block inside and unwrapping it from the straw-packed butcher paper, Jacob hefted it into the icebox. His rushing adrenaline made it seem half as heavy--the only consolation coming from his earlier humiliation. They would chip off pieces from the block as needed, for iced tea or lemonade, but otherwise, the ice would cool anything perishable inside the icebox for four or five days. Some families were having such a hard time getting by that they had to eliminate ice from their market order. Instead of keeping an icebox, they would store perishables in their well bucket, lowering it to the water's cool surface. His mom insisted on having ice, even if at times it seemed like an unnecessary indulgence.
Jacob removed the drain pan from the bottom of the icebox, dumping the cool water into a tub for washing the night's supper dishes. His mom would be on him if he didn't drain the melt water and it ended up overflowing. Jimmy used to perform this task, and like every other Jimmy chore, it had fallen on Jacob to take up the slack.
His mom hadn't said a word about overhearing the girls' chatter, for which he was grateful. She was scribbling away on a writing tablet when he finished with the ice. He gathered up the bean stems from the kitchen table to toss on the mulch pile his mom used to fertilize her expansive garden. Nothing in their house went to waste.
"Jacob? Got a second?"
"Sure." He left the bean scraps where they were. He wanted to get away from the house, putting distance between him and Mary, and the paralyzing thought of seeing her face to face.
"Sit down, please." She slid the writing tablet across the table. Scribbled in her stiff-angled script was a list of names.
"I was hoping you could do me a favor. I think it's high time we pulled out of our doldrums. We should always be sad over George's passing, but Jimmy is fine. In his own convoluted way, he's trying to make a man of himself by enlisting. If he's a man, then we should respect his wishes, even if we don't necessarily agree with them. We need to stop lurking about the house like we're in mourning." She played with the nub of pencil in her hand, as if deciding if she should follow through with what she wanted to say.
With the enthusiasm in which his mom had embraced Jimmy's supposed enlistment, Jacob had almost convinced himself of it as well. Thinking that way was easier, but deep inside he knew it wasn't true. Every day that went by with no letter from Jimmy, the harder it would be for his mom to believe. But as long as she believed, Jacob could pretend to believe also.
"What's the list for?" Jacob asked when she hadn't said anything for a while.
"It's an invite list. I've been thinking we should have a good, old fashioned potluck."
"A potluck? Here?" It was the last thing he expected his mom to say. He could scarcely recall more than a handful of times when they had invited anyone over. Their family was forever accepting invites to get-togethers, but his mom had always kept their home private. Whoever came to the house was considered family and in select company.
"I wish I'd been more open with our friends after your father died. I suppose I was too cautious. As the years went by, some of the townsfolk looked down on me for not remarrying. So I cut away from them even more. They couldn't understand a widow trying to raise two young sons on her own. But I've done it, and for the most part I think I've done a fine job.
"Louise can't raise her baby like that, it's too hard. For me, it was easier to close everyone out instead of risking one more person hurting me. Louise isn't like that. You know yourself, Louise needs her friends. She would just about crumble if she was alone."
"And the list?"
"I need you to invite everyone on that list to the Saturday afternoon potluck."
"I can take the truck?" he asked, trying not to get his hopes up.
"I suppose I'll have to allow it. If you walked, the potluck would've come and gone by the time you finished."
Her words freed him from invisible bonds. Except for the one trip to the Banyon house, he hadn't left the property since his reprimand for going out to Greta's house. He wanted to hug her, but instead took the list and quickly glanced at it. "I'll get on this right away. My chores are done. I weeded the garden, milked Polly, and mended the chicken coop."
Before she could change her mind, he was out the door and in the truck. It roared to life when he turned the ignition. He had to use all of his will power to not stomp on the gas and shoot gravel across the yard from all of his excitement.
The Fowlers were listed first. Initially, Jacob wasn't enthusiastic about the idea of hosting a potluck, but after thinking about it, he understood his mom wanted to accomplish more than just surround Louise with an understanding public. She didn't need to explain her logic; it was as clear to him as if he read it in a book. Have a get together. Invite Charles Banyon into a comfortable situation. See how he's handling being sober when the others would be drinking. It was almost as if she were offering Banyon a way out. If he screwed up, then Ellie could stay at their house while he stumbled home. Or, if for some reason he didn't louse it up, the neighbors could embrace him, embrace him how Louise would be embraced. Jacob wondered if he sometimes underestimated his mother.
Kicking up dust, getting away from the house for the first time in days, escaping Louise's constant updates about her never-ending nausea, he couldn't remember a time when he felt freer.
His thoughts still often centered on Jimmy, but as long as he had Greta's promise that he wanted more than anything to come home, he'd have to take her word for it, and wait for the day when he'd once again see his brother. He had never doubted Greta's word; she had never been proven a liar by anyone. But the truth was, he had little else to cling to at this point. He couldn't just go on make believing like his mom.
His mother had been hovering over him like a hawk since he'd returned from Greta' tree house, so he hadn't had a chance to follow Cooper. He thought about pitching the list out the window and heading straight for his house, but as he scanned the names while maneuvering the truck around a bend in the road, Cooper's name appeared at the bottom, just below a cross-out of his name.
So his mom had written down Cooper's name, thought better of it, then second guessed herself and added his name again. He'd be heading out to Cooper's house eventually, but since Jacob was closer to the Banyon place, it might be best to attack the list as efficiently as possible. He didn't want to risk angering his mother, not when she seemed in a better mood lately.
He pulled into the Banyon's long driveway. Coming to a stop in front of their house, he feared his suspicions of Mr. Banyon had come true. The man was tilted back in a rocker on the front porch. His arms hung askew to the sides of the arm rests, as if he weren't aware enough to move them back into a more comfortable position. He couldn't see the man's eyes--his head was tipped back too far--but he assumed they were closed.
The truck brakes needed fixing and screeched when he stopped. Mr. Banyon didn't stir.
Jacob hopped down from the truck and approach
ed the porch. When he was standing three feet from Ellie's dad, he still couldn't tell if he was alive or dead. He couldn't smell alcohol in the air, but that didn't mean Mr. Banyon hadn't slumped in the rocker to pass out. He hoped all he'd done was pass out.
Keeping an eye on Mr. Banyon, Jacob knocked on the front door, the pressure of his knuckles on the weatherworn wood pushing it open on its rusty hinge. With his heart stirring mightily in his chest, Jacob expected to see some kind of upheaval inside. Gouts of blood sprayed across the walls. Ellie's body face down in a twisted heap.
The room unfolded in layers, leaving an entirely different, but still quite unexpected, impression.
At first, all he saw was wood. All hues of earth tones, from white pine to rustic mahogany, in all textures and shapes. Then he noticed the menacing-looking tools spread across any available open space: sharp-pointed awls, ragged-toothed saws. Tools to gouge with, rend apart, hollow out.
And the smell. Overpowering. Vaporous. biting.
He stepped back from the open door, catching his breath.
He heard a creaking board from behind him and spun around.
"You just walk in to any old house you choose?" Mr. Banyon's voice was sarcastic instead of biting. He sat up in the rocker, stretched his hands above his head and couldn't quite stifle a whine that could have been his muscles screaming awake. "Yeah, this one passes the mustard if I do say so myself."
"You're back to making furniture?" Jacob asked, halfway ashamed for the fear he'd felt. The other half of him still stood on suspicious feet.
"Sure am. Just taking a break when you pulled up. Testing out this new rocker, why, it put me out cold in five minutes." Mr. Banyon stood and stretched his back. He didn't look as shaky as when Jacob and his mom dropped off Ellie's clothes. His eyes were clear, even though he had just woken up. "I'm hungry, boy. Want something to eat?"