But after dusk you could get outside the city limits and go like the wind—not meet a soul. Road between here and Winfield wasn’t paved, but in the spring it was smooth dry dust that flew up behind like a cloud.
You went along, river on one side hidden by trees, and along the other side were shanty houses where the white trash lived. Men and women would be out on their ramshackle porches, kerosene lamps lit on tables and bannister rails. The lamps were the old hand-held glass ones with reflectors—tin discs behind the globes that shone and made the light waver. The lights blinked and quivered like a long broken streak, and we could see them, see them all. A Pierce Arrow coupe was high off the ground, with windows all around like you were in a cockpit.
Aunt Bess liked Reb and felt sorry for him. She would lecture him about getting good grades and getting into a medical school out of state, where they wouldn’t pass him through because his father paid. Reb would slump in his chair, dejected, and say maybe he’d just join the army. You’re joking, Bess would say, all serious. Reb could get her going, pretending to want to do right.
She did dislike Doc Jonas and was only civil to him. We got a few of those girls down here. How many times did I walk across the alley in the dead of night … then had to give them my own skirt because their clothes were ruined. Jonas and Clayton were in a hunting club that rented a lodge at Blackwater every winter. The whole week Clayton was getting ready to go, Bess made noises. Clayton said her own thoughts had gone to her head and anyway, the whole business was complicated. Of course he never gave them any anesthetic but a shot of whiskey, or they couldn’t have gotten up and walked out fast enough. We had one who walked from the Jonas house to the hospital, two o’clock in the morning. Clayton cleaned his deer rifle and she mended by the light. Would she rather have those girls jump through the ice, like the one over at Milltown? They talked so low they were almost hissing. It was night. There’s going to be a judgment on him, a trail of blood straight down the hill for everyone to see. And you know where that trail ends? Right here across the alley. He’s not so good at it that he doesn’t make a mistake about once a year, or let one beg him into it when she’s too far along.
Doc Jonas had a lot of stories told on him, and some of them were lies. He was not an addict of any kind, I’m sure. And he was the only surgeon at the hospital in all those years who never lost a patient on the operating table. His wife had to be taken care of like a child; that was why the sister lived in. Mrs. Jonas had hair like a young girl’s, long and done up. Her sister, Caroline, brushed it in the evenings. That woman doesn’t know who she is half the time. Neurasthenia. Now, it’s not neurasthenia. Never seen out unless it’s in the car with Jonas, and then she looks at you like we’re all afloat on suds. How could her own sister allow it, for years … Reb and me sat in the living room. Mrs. Jonas played the Victrola and drifted like a feather. I’ll tell you how.… Mrs. Jonas was thin and her sister baked burnt-sugar cakes to tempt her into eating.
She was a beautiful girl and came here with a whole trousseau from New York City. Such dresses as you’ve never seen. Reb’s mother really was like a child, wandering around in the house. She was wakeful at night and stayed in her room, then slept all morning while the sister, Caroline, worked in the office with Doc Jonas. Then Caroline took her breakfast in, and I suppose gave her a shot. I don’t know, none of that was ever mentioned. By late afternoon, when Reb and I were there after last classes, she was up and dressed and happy in her vacant way. She wore clothes that women wouldn’t wear on the street, evening clothes—kind of lavish, like the clothes of a rich young girl. She used to remind me of the farm in Randolph County, because her dresses looked like what the women wore there on Sundays.
The widow sister, Caroline, looked like Mrs. Jonas in the face, but she was different. Like a thin dark rock, moving through the hall in her brown dresses. She did all the work around there but seemed to do it invisibly; I ate dinner with Reb and the Doc pretty often, and she never sat at table with us. Reb’s mother was nervous about eating and took her meals in her room. Maybe Caroline sat with her. Doc would leave for the hospital on evening rounds, and Reb and me would go to the parlor to steal ourselves a glass of brandy.
I remember Reb dancing with his mother once, on a winter night.
She came into the room very animated and turned up the radio, and was dancing by herself until she noticed we were there. Reb stood up and made a deep bow, then danced her all around the room. Made a big show of her, turning and dipping and lifting her all past the big windows, with the chandelier lit up and throwing shadows across the walls. You could see by how Reb moved how light Mrs. Jonas was; they were both laughing. It was a nice picture, with the dark outside. Then I felt something behind me—I knew it was the widow before I even turned around, and it gave me a chill. But when I looked she wasn’t even watching them. She was standing, real still, looking out the window at the snow.
Marthella Barnett fell in love with Reb his senior year, and she was no match for him by most standards. She came from a big family and had no upbringing. Barnetts owned the pool hall next to Shackner’s Store; the families were related and both had bad names. They were from Coalton and Bess would warn Reb about the girl, say Shackners were trash back then and hadn’t changed. They’d moved the store when the Coalton mines shut down and come to Bellington the way a lot of people did. Marthella was a pretty girl and met Reb in the pool hall—she was fifteen and had a beau she broke off with to go for a ride in the Pierce. Reb didn’t take her seriously at first, called her Tarbaby.
She looked even younger than fifteen because her father didn’t allow her to cut her hair or braid it or use rouge.
Barnett was known to marry his daughters off before they could graduate from school, but he thumped the Bible as he shoved them out the door.
Marthella was a dark little thing—the family had guinea blood, or Indian. Reb let her follow him around awhile; then he started taking her out; Reb driving and Marthella sitting way over on her side against the door, touching the dash with one hand.
I wouldn’t for a long time, when I did first chance with any other girl. Turn a corner and she’s standing there, trying to give me presents—cigarettes, an empty watch case. She told me she never had but she would, she wanted to. I laughed her off, told her she wasn’t legal. Drove fast to scare her, but she never scared. Her black hair hung to her hips. She would pull it over one shoulder so as not to sit on it, and look straight into the road, the black hair in her lap like some kind of animal. Shewould, she said, do anything, and her father wouldn’t know, no one would, she would never tell. For a long while we did other things. Holding off got to be a game, and she did what I said, no matter where, fast or slow. Then she’d kiss my wrists like I was all that gave her any peace. Once we went in her father’s bedroom while he was sleeping; she leaned against the wall by the foot of his bed and I was kneeling—she tasted like sour honey, small and tight and she bit her own hands to stay silent. She didn’t do these things for me, do you see? It wasn’t natural, she was only a kid. Like being a kid, a girl, was a disguise, and I saw her, I was the only one. I didn’t understand, I didn’t know what I saw.
After Marthella began to shadow Reb, the older girls were a little cruel to her. She wore white nurses’ stockings because Shackner’s got them in at the store. The girls asked her where her bedpan was, when would she get her cap and make an honest living.
I was courting Dot Coyner, and the four of us went to the river once that spring. Dot thought Marthella was odd, the way she would say things that had no bearing on the conversation and do anything Reb told her. Reb told her to climb to the top of the rocks in two minutes, in her shoes, and started counting out loud. Marthella jumped up and ran, held her dress up and climbed like a boy. Only reason she didn’t fall was because she moved so fast. Then Marthella was standing on top, and Reb said take off your dress and jump, jump in. That water was cold, freezing in early April. Dot stood up and said we were leaving, that Reb
was disgusting and made anyone ashamed. Okay, all right, Reb told her, and yelled at Marthella to come down. But before anyone could do anything Marthella did jump, holding her arms out like a circus tightrope walker. She was lucky she hit in deep water, dropped and sank like a stone. One night I was looped and got so twisted, for a second I really did think she was my mother. Then she was Marthella again and I hit her, I told her she smelled like something burst open, too sweet and dirty, not my mother, not my mother, and she cried and begged me to forgive her. She came walking out of the water, embarrassed at the looks on our faces, and we had to wrap her up and get her back to town before she caught pneumonia.
Wasn’t so rare then for girls to marry at fifteen, especially country girls, but everyone knew Reb Jonas wasn’t about to marry a Barnett. There was just no one to stop them; Doc Jonas let Reb do as he pleased and no one supervised Marthella. She didn’t really even have many friends; she was a strange girl. Reb was truant a lot and barely graduated in May; word was he and Marthella had been to Pittsburgh to the Carlyle Hotel and to the ocean, the beach down at Newport News.
It wasn’t till July that everything blew up. Dot and I pulled into the parking lot out in front of the dance hall. The Pierce was already there, Reb and Marthella sitting in the front seat arguing. Dot and I went in. After a few minutes I went out to have a cigarette and they were still there. Reb was yelling at her and rammed the Pierce into reverse, like to back out of the lot. Then he stopped the car, leaned across, and opened her door, told her to get out. She pulled her door shut; he revved the car and drove fast into the street, going out toward the river. Something was going to happen. I left Dot and drove out the river road after them. I drove way out past the shanty houses, where nobody much lived and the river was deepest, but there was no sign of the Pierce. On the way back to town I saw a glimmer through the trees on the river side, and the rutted soft grass where Reb had pulled off and driven toward the water.
I parked and walked a short distance through the trees. The Pierce was there, lights on and motor running, maybe a hundred feet back from the drop-off.
I yelled at Reb, and damned if he didn’t put the car in gear. I thought he was going to back up, but he floored the gas. The Pierce lunged up, tires spraying dirt, then rolled fast over the harder sand. I saw Marthella twisted round, looking at me as the Pierce rolled forward, but she made no move to stop Reb or get out of the car. It was like something in a dream. The Pierce was shining in the moonlight and they hit the drop-off and sailed out. Seemed like they stayed in the air a long time, but I remember too well how it looked. There was still light in the sky and the car’s headlights looked like candle glow playing across the river. Then they hit, as water came up all around. The car sat a second and went under. I didn’t know I wanted to hurt her. How bad did I want to hurt her? If I had wanted to, I would have had the windows rolled up, wouldn’t I? I couldn’t move, it happened so fast. But I jumped in after them pretty quick—the water was still moving on top and I came back up and swam toward the ripples.
Don’t know what the hell I thought I was going to do. I couldn’t have gotten them out. The water was deep. I dove down and saw the Pierce, big and black, still sinking way below me. It looked huge in the water, a big block, and the headlights were still on. Then I saw Reb swimming up like in slow motion, drifting up through the water, and he had Marthella by the arm. She looked like a rag doll in the gray water, not moving or helping him. I thought she was dead. I swam toward them and surfaced right after. They were gasping and coughing water. I held them both up and then we swam back, Reb and me holding Marthella. We got to the rocks—that rock ledge under the drop-off. Mitch, get her out of here for me. Take her to my father. We were all shivering and spitting water. I took her, pulled her up over the rocks, and Reb lay down where he was, didn’t move, didn’t watch us go.
I took her to Doc Jonas. He and Caroline were standing at the back door, looking at us through the screen. Doc was behind Caroline and he had his hands on her shoulders. Caroline came forward and let us in. All three of them went up the stairs.
I went to Reb’s room and put on some of his clothes and went home; I didn’t see Marthella after that. She was gone in about two weeks, to a beautician school that boarded girls. Maybe it didn’t turn out so badly for her—she probably ended up better than she would have otherwise. I did see her a few times years later, after the war. She was dressed too stylish for around here and had her hair cut short, managed a milliner’s shop in Toledo. She liked Ohio and she liked the work. She only came back to visit her mother and didn’t ask about Reb, though I guess she knew he was a doctor long since, living in the old Jonas house with his own family. Old Doc had retired and gone to Florida soon after Reb’s mother passed away. I couldn’t marry her and I couldn’t let my father touch her. She’d gone to his office and told him that afternoon in front of Caroline; it was all arranged, Marthella said. I just wanted her to disappear, all of it, disappear with her face the way it was when we got out of the Pierce and walked into the ocean. She had never seen ocean.
Fourteen years between high school and the war. Time passed like lightning.
Why didn’t I ever get married? Having too much fun, I guess, wasn’t ready to settle. And it was the ’30s too. A peculiar time. You worked for nothing. Everyone did.
I went to college a year and dropped out, then worked in construction with Clayton. He got me on at Huttonsville. Maximum-security prison there used to work chain gangs and they needed foremen. I worked crews awhile. Those were rough men, but I never had trouble, never held a gun on them. Worked all but a few without leg irons and never had a man run. Prison labor was an accepted thing in this state for many years. But I did better working on my own—lived in Morgantown, Winfield, working for various companies. Clayton and I didn’t start the cement plant until after the war. Earlier I traveled a lot and stayed in boarding houses, moving with the work crews on the road jobs. Between times, I stayed at Bess and Clayton’s in Bellington, in my old room. It was good to have a man there: Bess was busy at the hospital and Clayton was gone a lot; I helped with the kids in his absence.
Every spring we went out to the cemetery at Coalton. Even after the land was sold and deeded to the mining companies, Bess insisted on taking the kids every year. Our people are there and as long as I’m breathing those graves will be tended. It’s anyone’s duty. One day we’ll be lying there ourselves, miles from anything. Clayton was away, working at Huttonsville most likely. Bess had Katie Sue and Chuck ready. We were in a hurry, wanted to get there before the heat of the day came up, and Katie cut a fit. She got sick in cars when she was little and dreaded riding any distance. Seven or eight and high-strung as an old lady. She hid in the house and wouldn’t answer us. I got damn mad and switched her with a birch switch. Don’t you know I regretted it for years. Only hit her a couple of times across the legs but she hollered like she was killed. I guess it bothered me too that these kids didn’t care anything about the farm—to them it was just a deserted old place. I still liked to go there. House and land were empty, but otherwise it was all the same—mining companies didn’t work that property till after the war.
I went to the farm before enlisting, one of the last things I did. Took a good look. Went out with Reb. We sat on the porch of the old house and drank a few beers. I wasn’t real happy about the army, but they were going to draft me. Reb had a wife and children, but they wouldn’t have helped if he hadn’t been a doctor. He said if all the docs in town hadn’t signed up on their own, he’d have paid them to enlist so he could stay home and deliver babies.
The farm looked pretty, wintry and frosted and quiet. I enlisted in March—March 2, ’42—so must have been late February. Grass in the fields didn’t sway, didn’t move in the wind. Everything was chill and clear. Reb finally said it was time to leave and not sit any longer in the cold like fools.
The war swallowed everyone like a death or a birth will, except it went on and on. I was gone three years. They
dropped the atom bomb on Japan as our troop ship steamed into Oakland harbor. No one really understood what had happened at first; soldiers got on the trains and went home.
I had my thirty-fifth birthday on the train—cake with candles, and ice cream. Red Cross girls kept all that information on us, must have been their idea to celebrate. They were nice girls. The men got a kick out of it and joined in with the singing. The train was hitting rough track about then, and one of the girls (she was from Ohio, I believe) came walking down the aisle carrying a big square cake, lurching from side to side and trying to keep the candles lit. The way the car was jolting and shaking made me think of the boat crossing to the Philippines … April of ’45, how bad that night storm was. Raining and blowing, gusts of wind till you couldn’t stay on deck. Not a star in the pitch black and the boat tilting so you couldn’t keep food in a bowl. I looked out the train window as they were singing; we were crossing the Southwest. Flat, yellow land, and the sky was sharp blue, blue as it was in Randolph County the summers on the farm. I thought I would go back there even though the farm was gone—just to see it. Go back to look at the fields.
But I didn’t go back for a long time, even though I wasn’t far away. When I was married and had my own kids I was down that country—selling cranes and bulldozers for Euclid to a strip-mine outfit. The land was all changed, moved around. There were a few buildings left from the Main Street of Coalton, used as equipment shacks and an office. But out where the farm was—almost nothing. Heaps of dirt, cut-away ledges where they’d stripped. Looking at it made me think I’d been asleep a long time and had wakened up in the wrong place, a hundred miles from where I lay down. Like I’d lost my memory and might be anyone. Only thing they left alone was the wooden church, all falling in on itself, and the cemetery.
Machine Dreams Page 5