The Truest Pleasure

by Robert Morgan

  “Let’s go to the house,” I said.

  But Tom didn’t answer. I turned and saw this odd look on his face. It was like he wasn’t listening, but thinking of something different. Under the soot now his face was white as paper.

  “Tom,” I said.

  Joe come up closer to him. “How you f-f-feeling, old hoss?” Joe said.

  But Tom looked like he had been hit in the belly and couldn’t stand up straight.

  “You need a drink of water,” I said.

  “Better go set down,” Joe said.

  “I’m going to the house,” Tom said. He started walking like his legs weighed a hundred pounds each. He stepped right through the smoldering brush and broomsedge as if he didn’t see them.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  When Tom got to the house he went right to the toilet. He stayed in the outhouse for half an hour. Pa come back to the house, and Jewel and the other younguns. Joe went to round up the cows and put them in the barn.

  I washed my hands and face on the back porch. And then I set down on the porch and took Fay in my lap. My clothes smelled like smoke and my hair did have flecks of ash in it. When I touched a flake it melted to dust. I nursed Fay for several minutes, and when I was finished Tom still hadn’t come out. I thought I had better go down and see about him. Maybe he had gone and I hadn’t noticed it. I told Jewel to take Fay and put her in the cradle.

  “Tom,” I hollered, but there wasn’t any answer. Wind stirred high in the hemlocks and limbs swished on the roof of the toilet. “Tom,” I hollered again. It sounded like something stirred behind the door. “Are you there?” I said.

  “I’m sick,” Tom said in a low voice.

  “What’s wrong?” I said, and opened the door of the outhouse. There he set in the dark with his overalls down over his knees.

  “I’ve got cholly morbis,” he said. Under the soot he looked gray. He was sweating again.

  “You better come to the house,” I said.

  “I can’t get up,” he said. He said it like he didn’t care, like he wanted to be left alone.

  “You can’t stay here,” I said.

  I run back to the porch and told Jewel to go to the barn and get Joe. When Joe come we had to pull Tom out of the toilet. That was hard because he was so weak and because we couldn’t get inside the place. We had to first pull him over, to the right, in front of the door. After we got him lifted I pulled Tom’s overalls up and buttoned them, and we got on either side of him.

  Tom was heavier than I had dreamed. He had gained in the past two years, and was stout to start with. He could mostly support his own weight, but Joe and me had to keep him from falling.

  “Cholly morbis killed my grandpa,” Tom whispered, “after he got hot pulling fodder.”

  “Well it won’t kill you,” I said.

  It took us several minutes to climb the steps to the yard, and then to cross the yard. Tom walked like it was an awful strain to move. He was trembling, and too weak to hold his hands steady.

  “Go put some water in the kettle,” I hollered to Jewel. I thought there might still be fire in the kitchen stove.

  It must have took us ten minutes to get Tom into the bedroom. He had been sleeping in the attic for the past six or seven months, but there was no question we had to take him to the bedroom. We set him down on the bed, and I took off his boots. He laid down quick, too weak to hold his head up any longer.

  When the water was hot I poured some in a pan and got soap and a washcloth. I figured Tom wouldn’t feel any better till he was cleaned up. If the doctor come I didn’t want him to find Tom all covered with soot and dirt. With the pan by the bed I washed Tom’s face and neck, his throat and his chest. He had pieces of burned leaves and weeds stuck in his hair. His skin had broke out in splotches, white in places and red in others. Where he was tanned on his forehead, below the hat brim, the skin looked green again. I unbuttoned his overalls and pulled them off, jerking a little on one leg and then the other. He was shaking and looking at the ceiling. “You don’t have to do this,” he said.

  I thought, If I don’t, who will? But I didn’t say anything. I had never washed a grown man before, and I sponged him off like he was a baby. I washed him all over, where he was smeared with diarrhea, and where his legs and feet was crusted with dust and soot that stuck to the sweat. As I washed him he kept jerking, his teeth chattering. I wrapped him in a blanket. I was sweating in the hot room, but he was shivering like it was below zero.

  “Do you want something to drink?” I said.

  “No,” he said, and closed his eyes.

  I tried to remember what you give for cholly morbis. It was usually something that babies had in hot weather. It would kill them in a day if it wasn’t stopped.

  Joe was standing at the door when I come out of the bedroom. “Burnt l-l-liquor is what the old folks used,” he said.

  I went to the medicine shelf and got the jug. I poured a full cup of corn whiskey and set it afire. It was the scorching that was supposed to stop the cholly morbis. The flames leaped from the cup like it was a torch. I let it burn ten seconds before blowing it out. The liquor was warm when I took it into the bedroom. “Here, drink this,” I said to Tom.

  “Ain’t thirsty,” he said.

  “This will help,” I said. “This is the only thing that will.”

  His forehead was hot as a stove. It was like the fire he had fought had gone into him. I raised his head and put the cup to his lips. I reckon the liquor burned him, for he jerked away. “You’ve got to drink it,” I said, “or you won’t get better.”

  He took a sip, and then another. As the liquor went down the jerking stopped a little. I held the cup to his lips the best I could and he drunk most of it.

  “Give me some more of that blessed good medicine,” he said as the liquor took effect. He didn’t sound like hisself.

  But the liquor didn’t make him cool off. As he laid in bed he felt hotter and hotter. I was scared the fire in him was fed by the liquor. I set by the bed and put my hand on his forehead. He just laid there burning like a coal.

  Later, after I fixed supper and washed the dishes, I asked Pa what else you could do for cholly morbis. Pa had tired hisself and didn’t even read the paper as he set in the living room.

  “You could try blackberry juice,” he said.

  “I thought that’s for ordinary diarrhea,” I said.

  “Might help,” Pa said.

  I took a lamp down to the cellar and got a quart of blackberry juice. It was the color of wine, but thicker, thick almost as ink. I give Tom half a cup of the cold juice, and it made his lips and tongue black. He seemed to be getting hotter still.

  Sometime that night I must have put the children to bed. I guess Jewel helped, and I nursed the baby before she went to sleep. But I don’t remember. All I can recall is setting by the bed and watching Tom get hotter. Late at night was supposed to be the worst time for the fever and it wasn’t even midnight yet.

  Pa looked in before he went to bed. “You better get some sleep,” he said.

  “I can’t,” I said.

  Pa was wore out from the day’s excitement. His shoulders slumped more than I had ever seen them, and his face looked hollow. “Joe done the milking,” he said.

  After the house was quiet Tom drifted to sleep for a while. Then he woke and looked around. “Are the cows all in?” he said.

  “Joe got the cows in,” I said.

  “I didn’t pull no tops for them,” he said.

  “You don’t need to,” I said. “The cows are done fed.”

  He drifted off after that and I started getting drowsy. I was thinking about fighting fire and running through the thicket looking for Pa. It seemed the faster I run the quicker the flames burned behind me. It was like my running fanned the flames.

  “Stomp on it,” Tom said. He appeared to be talking to me. He was hollering a warning. “Stomp on it,” he yelled.

  I woke and saw Tom was talking in his sleep. He was twisting
, with a terrible look on his face. “Throw dirt on it,” he said.

  Tom moved his head from side to side as if he was trying to get loose from something. He was straining in an awful way.

  “Tom,” I said, “you’re just dreaming.”

  “I won’t let you burn it down,” he said, like he was talking to hisself. “I won’t let you burn down all I have done.”

  “Wake up,” I said.

  “You won’t destroy me,” he said.

  “What are you talking about?” I said.

  “This is the baptism of fire,” he said, and chuckled. His eyes was closed but rolling around. His hand reached out and fell back on his chest.

  “Tom, you are dreaming,” I said.

  “You and Pa will not destroy what I’ve worked for,” he said.

  He kicked the covers partly off. I reached to pull the sheet back and he pushed my hand away. But his eyes was still closed. He didn’t know what he was doing. “You got to stay covered up,” I said. I felt like Tom was a little youngun I had to look after.

  I nursed the baby at midnight, and carried her around the living room until she belched. The house was still except for the creak of wind pressing the roof. I still smelled like smoke.

  After I put Fay down I went back to the bedroom. As soon as I brought the light into the room I saw Tom had his eyes open. “You ought to sleep,” I said.

  “Ain’t nobody going to stop me,” he said, looking around the room as if he didn’t even see me.

  “Nobody is trying to stop you,” I said.

  “I ain’t going to quit,” he said. His voice was vague, as though he was saying one thing and thinking of something else.

  “Quit what?” I said.

  “I’ll get a dollar for wood and hew more crossties,” he said.

  I saw he was out of his head. It was a new plan he had to make money that winter. The railroad had advertised it would buy crossties a dollar each if they was made from sound chestnut wood. It took a day to hew a good one, but in winter there wasn’t any other way to make money. He had bought a new ax that fall.

  “Ain’t nobody going to stop me,” Tom said again.

  I pushed the covers back to his chin. The cholly morbis seemed to be over. I guess the burnt whiskey had stopped it. Or the blackberry juice. The old-timers had knowed what would work. But Tom had took some kind of fever. I figured he had got so weak and overheated something else had attacked him besides the cholly morbis. He was red hot. I could smell fever in the room.

  “I’m going to get two dollars for the molasses and split some more rails,” Tom said.

  In the fever his worries was all magnified and multiplied. I guess he was remembering his fears. “Mama, we got fifteen cents and a gallon of cornmeal,” he said.

  “I know where they’s a rabbit,” he said.

  The anger and spite went out of me. Looking at Tom laying there I thought I’d be sick myself if it would make him well.

  I tried to think what to do for fever. There was still whiskey in the jug. And there was pneumony salve, but I didn’t know if it would help. I tried to recall what folks said about fevers. The Indians made willow-bark tea. But I didn’t have any willow bark. I went to the medicine shelf to see what was there.

  Pa had tincture of lobelia for snake bites. And he had some powders for when his back was killing him. There was kidney pills Dr. Johns had give him, and yellow root I give the younguns for worms. There was a bottle of camphor, and cough syrup of honey and raspberry juice. There was Epsom salts and mineral spirits.

  I got a pan of cold water from the kitchen and took it into the bedroom. The only thing I could think to do was sponge Tom off. There wasn’t anybody to ask for help, and nobody awake but me. I turned the lamp up a little and pulled the covers back. Unbuttoning his nightshirt, I washed off Tom’s chest like I had before. But this time I went slow, using more water to cool him.

  “I’ll take fifteen cents for the rabbit,” he said.

  I washed his arms, wetting the undersides and the insides of the elbows. I wet his wrists, because I knowed you could cool yourself off by chilling your forearms.

  “Tom,” I said, “roll over.” I figured if I could wet his back and the back of his neck that would cool him off more than anything. But he didn’t hear me. He was so heavy I didn’t think I could turn him over by myself.

  “I won’t give a cent,” he said. “I wouldn’t give a cent for such carryings-on.” He was talking to me, or about me. He was still thinking about the money I had give to the preacher.

  “Turn over,” I said. But he didn’t pay any attention. He kept muttering like he was dreaming, but his eyes was open. I thought maybe if I could get a hold I could turn him over. I needed something to brace my foot against. I needed a place to grab him. I got on the other side of the bed and pushed my foot against the wall, and I stuck both my hands under his shoulders. I raised the shoulder some, but not high enough to roll him over. He fell back and his belly quivered. He was heavier than a big sack of meal.

  “Roll over,” I said. I tried again, and still couldn’t get him turned. There was no way I could lift his shoulder. I was going to have to give up. Then suddenly he turned over like somebody rolling in their sleep to try a fresh, cool side of the bed.

  I washed his back, and held the cloth to the back of his neck. I figured that might cool him a little. It seemed to work. He quit muttering and closed his eyes. After I took the pan to the kitchen I felt his forehead and it was cooler. His face was still red, but not as splotchy. He was asleep and not talking to hisself. I was so tired I set down and closed my eyes. After I drowsed a while, I got on the bed myself and went to sleep.

  The next morning Pa brought me a letter from the mailbox. It was from Locke. I set right down by the bed and read it.

  “Dear Ginny,

  “You know my big mouth always has trouble squeezing itself into the point of a pen, like a camel going through the eye of a needle. But I wanted to write, as much as the rich man probably wants to go to heaven. I meant to write soon as I got your letter, but then they transferred us to California. And no sooner had I got here than we had an earthquake and nothing has been the same since. I’ve read your letter several times in the past few months, and I’ve tried to think of something useful to say. Maybe your letter has helped me more than I can help you.

  “The night of the quake I started to write, but was too tired to concentrate. I had worked a twelve-hour shift at the hospital here. We’ve had a bad run of flu some say the soldiers brought back from Manila, and I’ve been working extra hours. The wards are full of sick soldiers and we are more shorthanded than ever. I had the tablet of paper and pencil on the table beside my bed, but I couldn’t get started with my letter. I sleep in an annex of the hospital. I was so tired I kept going over your words, but they got twisted up with the faces of boys I’d been tending. Seventeen had died in the past week, and we had another hundred who could die. The flu kept spreading through the barracks.

  “Finally I gave up and turned out the light. I must have slept four or five hours, dreaming of your letter and Pa and the place on the river. I thought I heard Mama speaking. You know what a deliberate voice she had. But she was talking about the flu and the boys in the ward. She was saying prayer alone wouldn’t be enough. And as she spoke I was sliding away. I washed up and away on a wave, then rocked the other way. It felt like the building and earth under was melting. That must have been when I woke and heard the roar. It sounded like a train going underground and through the hospital. Timbers and brick walls crumbled. But I couldn’t get out of bed. I was caught in a fluid that pushed this way and that. The bed slammed against one wall, then the other. I was scared as a baby would be if its mama had a fit. The solid stuff of the world had turned to plunging, shoving jelly.

  “After a minute the awful rocking stopped and I let go of the bed and tried to find my clothes. There was screams and sounds of the building crumbling. It was dark and I tasted dust. Through the window I
saw fires. A gas main exploded and lit up the sky.

  “Ginny, I won’t go into details about what followed. You can imagine how the hospital looked. Some of the walls and floors had fell and the wards was full of sick and dying, terrified, confused about what had happened. Many died that night of shock, or thirst. I worked eight hours straight carrying patients out of the rubble. I was lucky to be alive myself. Four nurses in a room next to mine got killed by a falling timber.

  “Ginny, your letter has helped me more than I can ever help you. Your words reminded me of the family and the peacefulness of Green River just when I needed them most. I have been weakened by the earthquake, and by the horror on the sick men’s faces. To somebody in a fever an earthquake must seem like the flames of hell itself unleashed on their face. Everything that is solid and certain gives way. Earth has lost its firmness.

  “Only now are things beginning to calm down. The electricity and water was restored to the hospital in less than a week. But it will be longer before the burned and collapsed sections are replaced. I feel weak as somebody with the flu. Worrying about the patients instead of myself has kept me going.

  “Now that I’ve started I might as well tell what I’ve been thinking. You know what a binge talker I am. I think the biggest problem we all have is our fear. We live in fear of sickness and pain, and big losses. That’s natural, the most natural thing. And in the mountains we are afraid of snakes and flash floods, spiders and panthers. We fear lightning and hailstorms. We are afraid of outsiders and strangers, of the law and government, and of change. We live in terror of damnation and hellfire.

  “The special thing that humans have is thinking. We remember the past and plan for the future. But that knowledge of the possible makes us fearful and anxious. Almost everything we do is for reassurance. I guess what Mama feared most and Tom fears most is loss of control and reason. It scares them to see a husband or wife go out of control. If somebody that close to them can lose their willpower and dignity then they might also.