by Lydia Peelle
A few miles out of town, a farmer in a wagon picks up Billy. They are passed by King, in his noisy horseless carriage. He is wearing a skullcap and goggles, his body hidden under a buffalo robe. He looks like a maniac.
Billy wonders if she will be at work at the Kings’ when he arrives. He will just knock on the front door and take her away from there.
The automobile smells horrible and makes a racket. When it passes, the farmer’s horse jumps sideways.
Wouldn’t it be a mess, the farmer says, sawing on the reins, if every man had one of those awful contraptions.
The farmer lets Billy off on the edge of town. He runs up to the Kings’ but he doesn’t have the nerve to go to the front door. He goes to the back. She is not there.
Late, the cook says, and slams the door in his face. Late. That does not sound like Maura. He runs back to town, to her boardinghouse, dark, cold, and empty. The floorboards creak. An old woman comes to the door and he has to say Maura’s name twice before she hears him and disappears up the stairs to get her. He waits, for what seems to be an eternity.
Bill Monday, he hears her say from the top of the stairs. But her voice is different. Weak. Lifeless.
She comes down backwards, as always. The treads creak under her boots. Finally, at the bottom, she turns to face him. Her face is drawn. Dark smudges beneath her eyes.
She reaches out to steady herself on the banister.
My God, he thinks. She is dying.
Two Minds
Bristol
Ruined, Maura says, in an empty voice. All of it ruined.
She says she’s got to get to work. Her hand on the banister is a gnarled claw. Red and raw from scrubbing the Kings’ dirty dishes.
You’re in no shape to work, he says. We need to get you to a doctor.
He follows her back up Solar Hill, back up to the Kings’. All the way up Solar Hill, she tries to shoo him off like a dog.
Go on, Bill Monday. You’ll get me fired. Go on. You should have never come back. You go on.
A fringe-top buggy passes coming down the hill, pulled by a well-bred horse. The faces inside peer out at them suspiciously. Billy picks up a rock and throws it after them. A panicky blackness is closing in. He cannot lose her.
He takes her arm and turns her towards him.
Remember, he says. We promised. We aren’t going to die. A promise is a promise.
Bill Monday, you fool, I ain’t gonna die. I’m going to have a damn baby.
That night, the thermometers of Bristol drop below zero. Still Billy walks, in his thin coat, up and down Main Street. He paces from Virginia to Tennessee to Virginia to Tennessee.
The stars in the sky are brittle chips. Not two nights ago, up on Holston Mountain, he had a vision of the two of them, together, free. And now that is gone, blasted to oblivion like the rock of the road cut.
He crosses the street. He could go. Women get the raw deal, he can hear her saying, but pushes the thought away. He could go. She doesn’t want him. She has told him herself. He should have never come back. He is no father, no husband. He’d do her no good.
Crossing the street again. No. He can’t leave her. Not like this.
His cloud of breath is thick and white and he walks straight through it, as through a fog.
Oh, Maura. I’m so sorry, Maura. No California. No stockings full of gold. No diamond-studded bicycle. No bear cub on a leash.
The cold air bites through his pants legs, rakes across his face. He could leave tonight, easy as a leaf would blow on this bitter mountain air. He could go, and not look back.
Stay. Go. Stay. Go. Back and forth across the street. Tennessee. Virginia. Tennessee.
It’s a hell of a good place, Bristol, to be of two minds about something.
August 7
August 7. The day of the physical examinations.
From the two doors of Richfield High School marked boys and girls stretched two lines of men. White and colored. Men from town, farmers, skinny boys from up in the Barrens, all waiting. Cracking jokes, talking tobacco, talking weather. Some just standing quietly. When the line moved, they all shuffled forward. One foot in front of the other.
Charles and Billy stood at the hitching post. The heat squeezed everything like a vice. Birds panted. All the horses and mules were slicked with sweat. It was Billy’s idea, to go out there. There’ll be a lot of men, he told Charles, and a lot of mules.
The pasture at the shack was already full of mules, always full of mules. Ears and rumps. Big, dark coffee-colored mules. Ready to work. Resting potential. Muscle and sinew and heart. Enough power to move mountains. American mules, the greatest in the world.
When they got to braying it was a racket to raise the roof. Billy would say, There goes the Committee on Public Information again. There goes the C.P.I.
It had been nearly a week since Bonnyman’s offer. Charles did not know what to do. He had walked up to Everbright, looking for Catherine. Strange days, these were, that he could just walk up to that big white house on the hill and knock on the big front door. Hatcher himself had answered. She wasn’t home, busy working down at the Red Cross canteen by the depot where passing troop trains stopped so the men could get a cup of coffee, stretch their legs, dance with pretty girls. Pretty girls were busy, these days, giving the troops a proper goodbye. Everyone busy all the time.
Come again sometime, Hatcher said, looking him over. An upright fellow like you might be what she needs to talk her out of this nursing nonsense. Lord knows she won’t listen to me.
Before he went away Charles asked if he had heard any news about Edmund. Hatcher looked at him for a long time. His face went through a dozen changes. Finally he opened his mouth.
Oh, he’s fine, fine! It came out a crazy yelp. Yes, fine! Fine! Fine!
Strange, yes. That had been the same day Kuntz woke to a cross burning in his yard.
At the sale he waved it off, joked about it as he had joked about the red paint.
Richfield’s idea of Schrecklichkeit, he said. But this time his laugh was strained.
Mercy, he said, did it scare Missus Kuntz. She’s afraid they’re going to lynch me. And poor Gus. It took all day to calm him down. He don’t like fire.
Kuntz shook his head.
Only one thing worse than being a colored man these days. And that is being a German.
A big country fellow came out of the building and took the reins of a good stout mule. Charles went over and gave him the little speech about George Washington and duty and honor and how mules would win the war.
I got no wife, the man said. No family. The man in there says I’m in tip-top shape. So I suppose my fate’s decided. Suppose I won’t be around much longer to have a need for this old mule. Then, with a smile, he added, Suppose I oughta get used to walking. I hear they make you walk like the devil over there in France.
John Rich IV came out, looking smug. When it was announced that men who had been married after announcement of the draft would not be exempt, his father had gotten busy working on a commission for him. Cherry had told Catherine he was certain he would spend the war behind a desk, far from combat. After a while, Twitch came out, a hangdog look on his face. Anytime Charles saw him in town these days it was with a pack of men from the sawmill, big-shouldered, hard-drinking men, the sort who cussed and brawled outside the blind tiger on Saturday night and on Sunday mornings shouted ugliness at the wagons of families on their way to church from Freedman’s Hill.
Just like I figured, Twitch said. He pulled out his lip and stuffed it with tobacco. I’m healthy as an ox. Some good that’s gonna do me with those little brats to look after. I could go over there and knock the kaiser down and be back in time for breakfast. Shit. Last week, you know what I done? I prayed. Said, Lord, show me a path.
Well, Billy said, next time ask the Lord what Charles here ought to do too. He’s been pacing the floor all week.
Charles explained about the position in Columbia. Twitch’s small eyes flared in jeal
ousy.
Shit, he said. Columbia. What they got in Columbia they don’t got here?
And he had walked away, muttering, What kind of fool goes to Columbia?
When it was over Doc Walker walked out, wan and spent-looking, followed by Leland Hatcher. They came over to where Billy and Charles were standing with their mules at the fence. Hatcher told Charles he wanted him to speak at the month’s Red Cross meeting.
I’d like the people to hear from a man like you. A young man with vision enough to get into the fight long before that pacifist schoolmaster in the White House did.
Charles stammered. Just the thought of speaking in front of all of Richfield made his blood run cold. They would see right through him, the first word out of his mouth. They would all know he was nothing but a rube.
He overheard Billy ask Doc Walker how it had gone, and he head Doc Walker say something about the men who examined beef cattle up at Nickerson’s killing floor.
But instead of sending the culls out to slaughter, the doctor said soberly, I’m sending the good strong healthy ones. The ones in their prime.
Hatcher leaned over, overhearing this too.
Doctor! he hissed. What kind of talk is that? You, with a boy in the Old Hickory division. You of all people.
Well my boy’s a bigger man than me, Doc Walker said simply. Then he peered at Hatcher over his glasses. You know, I’m worried about you, Leland. You’re run down. Burning the candle at both ends. A man’s got to rest. And it’s a terrible strain on you, not knowing about Edmund. I can understand. My boy’s been in the Army for two years now. I can understand the strain of not knowing.
Not knowing! Hatcher sputtered. Edmund’s fine. He paused. I have it on good authority.
Doc Walker raised his eyebrows. And what authority is that?
Don’t question me, Walker! Hatcher snapped. I am not worried about the boy. Not one bit. The boy is fine. And what is this nonsense about resting. I have more energy than I’ve ever had in my life. We cannot rest. We are deciding the fate of civilization! We are making the world safe for democracy! We cannot rest a single moment. The Germans are breathing down our necks!
Come up to my office tomorrow, Doc Walker said gently. I’d like to give you a physical.
Hatcher brought his hand down hard on the fence, causing the mules to start.
Christ almighty! I said I’m fine!
Charles and Billy took the mules back to Dillehay’s. They stood at the fence and watched them join the ones in the pasture. One came over and stretched her head to them, and Billy scratched behind her ear.
Charles hung on the fence. He had made his decision and now he could feel the anticipation of it in his fingers and toes. He knew he had to do it. Go to Columbia.
Seeing all those men today, Billy, he said. Up there so cheerful and so willing. A man’s got to do his all. That’s the plain truth.
Billy raised an eyebrow and slowly shook his head.
Charlie boy. The truth is currently owned by the United States government. They mint it like money and they dole it out and they take it away. For all we know old Kaiser Bill is just a gentle misunderstood soul. I have never met him personally, after all. How do I know? Me, I’d just as well get my facts from these mules here. Or from old Ernestine up there on Freedman’s Hill. Leland Hatcher sure seems to listen to her, after all, and he’s our authority on the whole damn mess.
That woman, Charles said. I think it might be dangerous, what she’s doing to him. Filling his head with crazy notions. You saw him today. Looked like he was about to crack.
Billy shook his head again. If Leland Hatcher cracks, it’s no fault of that old woman up there. A man hears what he wants to hear, after all. Hell, she might even be doing him some good. I don’t know. All I know is I’m awful tired of working for this war.
Charles turned to face him. The sun beat down on his head like a hammer. All the way home he had felt sheepish about the way he had given his speech to that first man who came out of the high school. Preaching about duty and honor and sacrifice when he himself was shrinking from it.
I’m tired of it too, some days, he said. Can’t say that too loud, can you? But what’s the alternative? Do nothing? How can a fellow do nothing when everyone else is giving their all?
Billy looked up at the sky and shrugged. I don’t know, Charlie boy. That’s a question for a better man than me.
Gin came over, and the mule nosed her. It was always a delicate dance, with Gin and the mules. An undeniable fact that they recognized in her their mothers, even if they looked nothing like her. They followed her everywhere. It was sort of touching.
Billy reached out and scratched her mane. She lowered her head, blinking her big deer eyes.
They say we’re fighting to end all war, he said, more to Gin than to Charles. But it seems to me you can’t end war with war. That seems to me a real backward kind of thinking. Those men up there today, they’ve been told they are making a choice. That they are choosing the right path by stepping up and putting their name on the dotted line. But they haven’t got any choice. There’s no choice in what they’re doing. Why, a man’s hardly free these days to speak his own mind.
Well we’re fighting for freedom, Billy. That’s what we’re fighting for.
Billy kept scratching. Gin groaned and sighed.
You do what you got to do, Charlie boy. I believe I will go to the moon.
That evening Charles went in to Suddarth’s to use the telephone to call Bonnyman. The man at the counter boasted that he had passed his physical exam with flying colors. Pointing Charles to the telephone, he sang a line from a new song: Hello, Central! Give me no-man’s-land . . .
Charles told Bonnyman he wanted the job. Bonnyman said he would set up a meeting with Huntington when he came to Nashville in a few weeks.
Charles hung up. Bonnyman had been curt and businesslike. He had hoped for something more. He just wanted someone to tell him that he had made the right decision.
Outside the air had grown so heavy it had to break. But lately it never broke. It would grow hotter and hotter and heavier and heavier, but the rain would never come. At least to Richfield. You would see the lightning off to the north and know it was raining up in Kentucky, cooling the sweltering earth, and envy the bastards.
Charles sat down on the bench outside the store. He was suddenly bone tired. When he heard the crash, he first thought it was thunder. Then the man from Suddarth’s came outside and looked up and down the street. All along East Main, men were coming out of the shops. Two doors down from the Paradise, Leland Hatcher’s Pierce-Arrow was halfway through the shattered front window of the furniture store.
They walked over together, Charles and the Suddarth’s man. A crowd had already formed. Someone was helping Hatcher out of the driver’s seat. Shards of glass on his shoulders and in his hair winked and glittered. His eyes were wild. He looked very small.
Somebody get Edmund for me, Hatcher was saying. Tell him to help me clean up this mess.
Sir?
Go find him! Hatcher snapped. He’s around here somewhere. Go check up at the country club. For Christ’s sake, hurry!
Mister Hatcher. Sir.
If someone would just go get Edmund we’ll get this mess cleaned up!
The Suddarth’s man looked at Charles and raised his eyebrows. You reckon that window just jumped out in front of him?
Jesus, Charles said.
Two men came up and got on either side of Hatcher and walked him up the street and helped him into another car and drove off. A boy hurried out of the furniture store with a broom. Probably drunk, someone muttered. A slip of the foot, someone else said. Could happen to any man.
The Suddarth’s man was untying his apron, shaking his head. I’m going home, he said. It’s been a long day.
Second High
Bristol
Billy does not leave. He decides that frigid night on Main Street—he doesn’t even know, anymore, which side he is on—that he is go
ing to take care of her.
He rents a house for them down on Second High Street, in a slummy line of identical houses. He takes her to see it that afternoon.
Don’t worry, he tells her. I got it all taken care of. I’m gonna marry you.
A weird thaw has come on. The air brings the stench of rotten eggs, something dead. She begins to cry.
He gets a job at the terra-cotta factory, where the kilns are so hot the men strip down and work shirtless, in spite of the snow falling outside. He has worked there three weeks when one day there is an accident and a boy is killed, burned so badly he makes just one sound, like the mewing of a cat, before he dies.
On the way back to Second High that afternoon Billy sits down. He puts his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. It will be months before the smell of charred flesh will leave his nose and right now it is unbearable. He squeezes at his nostrils. He doesn’t want to go home. The nights have been terrible. Maura is sick, tormented by strange pains. He has been sleeping in the front room. They hardly speak.
He looks down the crooked street.
They have to get away from this place.
She is inside, frying potatoes. This is the only thing she can eat, fried potatoes, that does not make her ill. The fat is so expensive, he keeps telling her. But she can not stomach them boiled.
He puts his arms around her. We’ll go to California. I’ll take you there.
She is stiff in his arms. The potatoes in the pan hiss at him. He looks away from them, seeing again the dead boy’s bubbled flesh.
We’ll leave tomorrow, he says. Let’s go.
Don’t say that. You know that would leave us in worse straits than this.
He knows she is right but still he goes back into the other room and takes out a bag and begins to pull things off the shelves. Her meager treasures. Her watch charm, her Robinson Crusoe. His gifts. Things he would like to trade back in for the money he spent on them. They need money. Where does she keep that cigar box hidden? He gropes the top shelf. Her scrapbook falls to the floor, lies open like a dead bird with spread wings. He picks it up, hating the photographs of the actresses, hating their false promises.