“Was the Ashland National Bank then. Didn’t make it through the Depression, though. Like lots of others. Was taken over by the Second National Bank in thirty-two, I think. Changed again only about four years ago. Now it’s the First Bank and Trust Company.” He looked at me. “Bobbin’ and weavin’. Got more lives than some cats,” he said.
I let him continue.
“Not all banks was like that.” He was rolling now, and the opening that I had probed grew larger. “By late thirty-two, more’n six thousand banks had locked their doors. That’s over one-quarter of the banks in the whole country, Mr. Nolan. Nine million people saw their life savings disappear like smoke in thin air while they slept. Happened lots ’round here. Lots,” he said. “Happened to four people who used to live here back in thirty-two. Mrs. Donohue was one of ’em. Widow woman. Had their money in a bank little farther down the street there”—he nodded—“and they put locks on the front doors, closed the place up. Mrs. Donohue had ’bout fifteen hundred dollars in a savings account, which she got from her husband’s insurance policy, along with six hundred fifty dollars of her own money, saved over thirty years of dressmakin’. Gone. That was it. She left. Had to go live with relatives. Nothin’ left but to accept charity. Same with the others.” He shook his head, remembering.
“But that one.” He nodded toward the bank that we could see, the one that rose some ten stories above the ground, towering over the downtown core. “That one’s still there.”
I sat back, wary of the raw, exposed nerve that I had uncovered.
“And Jack?” I asked suddenly.
Stanley seemed to start from the name. Then he firmed. “Jack’s gone,” he said. And his eyes clouded, angry, frustrated. “We don’t know where.”
I said nothing. In my head, I saw Jack smiling, alive and young, in the pristine night.
Across from the Scott, beside the Calvary Episcopal Church, was the Ashland News store. I browsed, intending to buy a newspaper, maybe a souvenir. I found postcards celebrating Kentucky in general, some imported from Lexington and Louisville, but nothing with an Ashland logo; the same was true of T-shirts, pens, key chains—you name it. Ashland did not advertise itself.
It had no identity in a larger world.
I bought the Daily Independent—the Ashland paper—tucked it under my arm, and went back out into the sunshine.
Between 14th and 15th, on the north side of Winchester, construction was fully under way for the Ashland Plaza Hotel, “luxury accommodations in the heart of the city—opening September, 1985.” The architects’ drawing stood in stark contrast to the Scott, a stone’s throw away.
I looked from one to the other, at odds across the street. The past and the present, momentarily crossing paths, I thought.
Again.
On the northwest corner of Winchester and 17th was what used to be a post office. The cornerstone read 1916. In its windows were For Lease signs.
And in 1934? I wondered.
Is this where you mail them from, Jack? Is this it?
At the Jolly Pirate Donuts on the corner of 20th, I had a coffee and doughnut and read the newspaper. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, either here or in the world at large.
Behind the library at 17th and Central, I sat once again on the bench in the park. As before, the three large mounds—perhaps ten feet high—in the otherwise level grassland caught my eye; this time, though, I sauntered over to have a closer look.
There was a wooden plaque that had seen better days marking them. Indian mounds, it said, dating from the Adena period (800 B.C.—A.D. 800). Opened in 1870 by a Dr. Montmollen, they were burial sites. Ashland, it appeared, had been the site of an ancient village, and the entire area was speckled with graves. These had been restored.
The underground world, I thought.
Surfacing, receding.
Surfacing.
I ate lunch in McMean’s Pharmacy at Winchester and Judo Plaza, the fans swirling the air around my fevered mind.
Later that afternoon, from a distance and unseen, I stood and watched.
Adam Berney was playing baseball with Kenny in the deserted parking lot. They had chalked a square, the pitching target—which served as home plate—on the wall of the empty factory. Kenny pitched, a lime green tennis ball, while Adam stood in for his swings.
I would never talk to my mother again. She was gone.
Standing there in the sun, beside the vacant lot in Ashland, Kentucky, in August, I now understood, was part of healing.
The skin would grow stronger, tougher, the world more focused on the present. I knew this from the experience of the stillbirth. There had been a year of grief and coping before I had functioned adequately. By then, Fran and I had ceased to have meaning as a couple and could not recapture our former lives. Everything had changed. And the new skin, although it looked the same, was always sore to the touch.
Squinting against the brightness, I watched the pitch, the swing, the miss.
My son, if he had lived, would be about their age.
All day, I thought. They can do this all day.
It must be wonderful.
2
At 7:30 p.m., I walked up the front steps of the pale blue frame house and rang the top buzzer. Within seconds, Jeanne opened the door and stepped out, closing it behind her. She wore a summery cotton top and a white skirt. Her eyes, I noticed, had liner on them, and she was wearing lipstick. And she was wearing perfume, a subtle, Southern scent.
“You look great.”
“Thanks.”
“Hope I’m not underdressed.” I looked down at myself, holding my hands palm outward.
“You look like a million bucks.”
We started down the steps. “Do we need a car? I’ve got one.”
She shook her head. “We can walk. It’s close.”
“Feels like rain.”
“Not for a while,” she said. “For a while, it’ll just be hot and the wind’ll blow.” She looked at me. “Maybe in the night.”
“You’re the expert.”
She put her arm through mine as we walked, and it felt like it belonged.
The Chimney Corner Tea Room was on Carter near 15th, and did indeed look pleasant—more like a cottage than a restaurant. The view from our table through the front window was colored by an array of purple flowers outside that were as high as a hedge. It was a family restaurant, and the better-off families of Ashland were about us, scrubbed clean in shirtsleeves and cotton dresses.
When I saw the prices on the menu, though, I spoke up. “This is a cut above McDonald’s. I think this one should be on me, too.” I tried to sound firm.
“Nonsense.”
“Dutch treat, at least.”
“My treat, Leo Nolan from Canada. Men your age are always tryin’ to buy a woman, without even knowin’ you’re doin’ it.”
I was chastised. “I didn’t mean—”
“I know you didn’t. It’s me has to get it straight in my head, too. Been too many years when I didn’t get it myself. I’m asserting myself,” she said, a blend of pride and coyness on her face. “Woman has to assert herself, clear the air.”
I relaxed, smiling. “Man my age,” I said.
“Is just the right age,” she finished. “Just needs a little tunin’, like a piano.” She smiled. “Just a little.”
I let her pick the wine.
In the corner of the restaurant sat a man in shirt and tie, wearing dark glasses, playing the electric organ and singing “Come Saturday Morning.”
“He’s blind.” Jeanne didn’t look at him as she said it. “Been here for years.”
I nodded, not knowing what to say.
Jeanne ordered the seafood platter, and I decided to try the catfish, “a Kentucky specialty.” “They just fry it in batter,” she explained. “They do that to everything in Kentucky.”
“Will they serve it with biscuits, too?”
“You bet.”
I sipped the wine, a California white.
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“How’s your cholesterol level?” she asked.
“Haven’t had it checked.”
“Better book yourself in when you get back to Canada.”
The blind organ player began singing “Mona Lisa.”
She studied me for a long time in silence. Then she said: “You’re a cop, right?”
“What?”
“A cop. A federal agent. What do they have up there in Canada? State troopers? Mounties?”
“Good Lord, Jeanne—”
“I’ve gone out with cops. They keep to themselves. Like you. And there’s always pieces missing from their stories. It’s ’cause they want something from you.”
“I assure you, I am not a cop.” I gave her the most sincere look I had.
She considered, took a sip from her wine. “Really?” she asked.
“I am just what you see, and what I said. Nothing more.”
“What are you doin’ in Ashland, then? Really. We don’t get tourists, and if you’re not here on business, I’m stumped.”
I sat back, thinking. She was too observant to play games with, her company too good to lose so quickly. And the bouquet of her perfume, mixed with the warm air and California wine, made me want to share some intimacy. I think most men’s brains often work in this simple way.
And she deserved as much of the story as any sane person could handle.
“My mother died in March.”
Her face straightened. “Oh. I’m sorry.”
“She had a brother whom she hadn’t seen for years. Ashland was his last known address. I came to see if I could End him.”
She relaxed. Finally, what I was saying rang true for her. “You found him?”
“No,” I said. “Not really.”
She waited.
“We haven’t heard from him for fifty years.”
She looked incredulous, yet said nothing.
“Gonna do a little more digging around, see what I can find out.”
“Fifty years … Jeez … Is he here? Still?”
I thought of last night and the night before. “I don’t know,” I said.
“See,” said Jeanne, pointing to my catfish. “What’d I tell you?”
I looked at it. “A Kentucky specialty.” I checked the batter. “You were right.”
“I love those words.”
“Pardon?”
“ ‘You were right.’ They just might be a woman’s favorites.”
I smiled.
“In my case, it’s ’cause I’m not right often enough. But when I am, it feels good.”
“It feels good for everybody. You don’t have to be a woman.” I cut into the catfish.
The organ player was singing “Red Roses for a Blue Lady.”
“Where do you live in Toronto?” she asked.
“I’ve got an apartment, downtown. A one-bedroom.”
“Any family there?”
I chewed, thinking. “Lots, I guess,” I said at last. “My father’s still alive. He’s eighty years old. And I’ve got two brothers and two sisters.”
“Big family.”
I nodded.
“They all still live in Toronto?”
“My older brother lives in Sudbury with his family. That’s about two hundred miles north of Toronto. The rest of them, though, yeah. Around the city, and in its suburbs.” I sat back, looked at her. “What about you?” I asked. “I met your mom.”
“And my dad’s there, too. And I’ve got an older sister. Just the two of us.”
“She live in Ashland?”
“In Cincinnati, with her husband and two kids. Got a nice house, beautiful family. Adam likes to visit. No doubt about it,” she said.
I waited.
“She’s the family success story.”
We listened to the man in the dark glasses finish his song.
“What happened to Adam’s father?” I asked.
She chewed quietly for a moment. “He was in Dayton, last I heard.” She shrugged. “I guess he’s still there.”
“You divorced?”
“Never married. When I got pregnant, he just left.”
I digested this before I spoke. “Does he ever see Adam?”
“Not once, far as I know. He doesn’t send a postcard, a Christmas card, or a birthday card. And he’s never paid a dime in support.”
I felt uncomfortable even listening to this account of such epic uninterest. “Did you get a lawyer?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t need a lawyer. Once he left, I realized that I didn’t need him. I realized what he was. I can look after myself.”
“But he should—”
“Leo Nolan from Canada, you surely don’t get it, do you?”
I was quiet.
“It isn’t about what people should or shouldn’t do. It’s about what they do or don’t do. Why would I want anything from him if he don’t want his own son?” She stared at me, pushed herself back. “We got a homey little sayin’ for a fella like him down here.” There was a glint of steel in her eye that accompanied the half smile. “We say that he can go fuck himself.”
I nodded slowly, sagely. “You know,” I said. “We got that same homey sayin’ up north.”
“So what do you think of the music?” I asked.
The blind organist was doing his rendition of “My Way.”
“I’m not too crazy about any music by anyone who didn’t die violently in a motorized vehicle. You know what I mean?”
“Buddy Holly,” I said.
She nodded. “Him and others. That’s the idea.”
“You like some more wine?” I held out the bottle.
“You bet.” She held out her glass.
We stood outside the pale blue frame house. Even in the dark, the wind was blowing warm and sultry.
“No rain yet?” I asked.
Jeanne shook her head. “Just the wind, for a while. Then’ll come the lightning. It’ll come in sheets from the east and the north. Afterward, there’ll be rain. Lots of it.”
I kissed her. It was the right thing to do, because it came to me spontaneously.
When I stepped back, she looked at me fondly. “Last time, we shook hands.”
“Don’t know what got into me,” I said.
“It’s only after nine o’clock.”
I waited.
“You like to come upstairs for a while?”
“Very much.” Then I pondered. “What about Adam?”
“I can get him around midnight. Mom won’t mind. Girl doesn’t get too many nice dates she can afford to mess up when she gets to my age.”
“That’s a couple of hours from now.” I looked about me, at the lights in the windows of surrounding houses, wondered who was sitting out on their front verandas. “What’ll the neighbors say?”
“We got a homey little sayin’ about that down here.”
“I’ll bet you do.”
She took my hand and led me up the walk.
3
We made love that night.
With the warm night wind sweeping across the Appalachians, up the winding Ohio, and through the open second-story windows of the robin’s-egg house, we explored each other’s bodies in the hesitant manner of all new lovers—careful, uncertain of the limits. And when it was over, it was as right and as comfortable as the dinner at the Chimney Corner Tea Room had been.
I have a memory of her outline in the darkened room, of the sway of the mattress, of the cool sheets wrapped about us, and of the taste of her mouth as the lightning flashed finally in the skies, as she had said it would. And, strangely, of all things, I remember the feel of her fingers as they trailed along my shoulders, and how much I needed that touch.
In the dimly lit room, I thought of Adam’s father, walking away from this woman and his son. I thought of all the things I could never comprehend, and knew that they were just beginning.
At midnight, we walked to where my car was parked behind the Scott Hotel and drove to Carter Avenue. I waited while Je
anne went inside her parents’ bungalow, and came out with a sleepyhead boy in tow, then drove them back to their home.
On the veranda, she opened the front door. “Upstairs,” she said to him. “Into the bathroom. It’s late. I’ll be up in a minute.” She guided Adam through the door, closing it softly behind him.
When we were alone, I held her. “Ritchie Valens,” I said.
“Pardon?”
“He sang ‘Donna.’ He was in the plane with Buddy Holly.”
I felt her smile against my chest. Then: “I’ve got to go. Mom stuff,” she added.
“I know.”
“Look.” She pointed over my shoulder.
I turned. Sheets of lightning, without sound, rippled the sky across the river. Watching the spectacle, this woman in my arms, I wondered where I was, how all this had happened.
“I’m not supposed to ask,” she said. “But I will.”
“What?”
“Will I see you again?”
I pulled her head back to my chest, where it fit snugly below my neck. “Yes,” I breathed. “Yes.” And I meant it.
But already I was alive with what would happen next that night.
The lightning flashed at my back, leaves on the trees stirring in the wind, and I knew, even then, that I was going to see him within an hour.
“Yes,” I said.
I stood and waited.
He came out of the hospital at 1:00 a.m., as he had previously, and we replayed the entire walk along Lexington, 14th, the pause at the Scott, then onto Winchester. It had become a mantra, a ritual like the Mass, where each step in the ceremony was ordained, cherished, and respected.
When he stood, finally, across from the First Bank and Trust Company building, he put his hands in his pockets as I knew he would, turned and faced me, and once again, our eyes met.
And yes, there were sheets of silent lightning electrifying the air as we stood there, and I have no idea whether it was pure coincidence or not. But it happened that way, and the images that I remember are burned into my brain as white-hot flashes and heart stops in the night, as the world turned inside out, and I shared a timeless point in the universe with my uncle, who was younger than I was.
Shadow of Ashland, A Witness to Life, and St. Patrick's Bed Page 8