Collected Stories of Reynolds Price

by Reynolds Price

  BREATH

  Son,

  You ask me to help you see where we come from and how I could use you the way I did through all those early years of your life when you got almost nothing from me in the way of mercy, not to speak of love. Of course there’s no way left on Earth for me to tell you—it’s so long gone from my mind anyhow, dazed as I am and drunk as I was every time I laid a hand on you or your dead mother—which Christ truly knows is no excuse but a fact more shameful than most cold killings.

  I thought about us many hard nights before you asked me—long years before—and all I can halfway come up with is this, no answer. Still if I could someway haul you down through time again and take you through my entire life from all the way back to my own dad and the blood he beat out of me many times, then you might see I was more your older beat-down brother than your actual dad—a beat—down brother years older than you that got his nerve lines badly crossed and wound up trying to turn your life into what he’d had, with no improvement at all for the years that ought to have healed him.

  My dad, see, was raised by a mother that died before I was old enough to know her—which may have been my main piece of luck, considering what I heard about her when I was old enough to hear what men at the plant were saying about her years after my dad found her strangled on the kitchen floor and no one suspect. They were all suspects was what I heard—she’d been the county whore all her life or since she was old enough to count cash money, lie down and not be smothered by a grown man gouging her crotch or face. My dad was the only kid she kept and while I figure he saw enough to freeze most minds, well before he learned how to run—her bringing six men home per night on weekends—the fact was, he claimed to worship her memory.

  He’d sure God tell me how sweet she’d been every time he made me sit beside him at the kitchen table and wait till he’d drunk himself half blind and then decided I needed my weekly beating to tame her share in me-he’d truly say that. “You’ve got her blood all in you, Sim; and I’m draining it off.” I’ll swear to you now he came as close as a man can come and stop short of murder till I got strong enough to tell him one night “You lay one finger on me again—not to mention Mama— and I’ll see you to a painful grave in a New York minute if I have to spend the rest of my life in solitary.”

  Considering that my pitiful mother never tried to shield me from him, not with more than a tear, I’d been in solitary fifteen years. It’s nothing but the truth that from the time I was four years old till the night I stopped him in his tracks, I never cut my bed light out without expecting to be torn out of my sheets by dawn and smashed or screamed at at the least and at the worse be forced to watch him do sick things to Mama—her body and mind, neither one of which were tough enough for the normal world, whatever that was, not to mention this nightly savage we had where other families had cats or dogs.

  So there—you won’t know that much, I guess, unless your mother told you more than I think she’d dare to, little as she ever tried to change me or fought for you. She was not a bad woman—I never said so—but I do say she laid down in the floor time after time or sobbed in the basement when just her face or a kind word from her might have stopped my arm from slamming on you to numb my brain like you were the brother too late to help me and were punished for that.

  I don’t expect this to help you see your way ahead, not by one inch. It’s what you can hear all hours of the day from TV talkers who blame every watt of their clear-eyed meanness on somebody standing years behind them or cold in the ground. I only claim I’ve told you the truth in these few lines as far as it goes. It ruined me before I could shave and for some lame reason I let that be my entire life, that fifteen years. I’m fifty-four years old tonight; but you’d be right if you said my life stopped cold on a dime when I was four, maybe nine at the most. A stronger human—with a useful mother or a God that noticed—would have brushed his clothes off, stepped on into the permanent present and shut the awful past door behind him.

  You may not yet be old enough to know how very few humans manage that, simple as it sounds—just closing a door and throwing the bolt. I’ll have to say I’ve known a few men and women who did it. But they’ve been rare as my good nights. As you know I’ve spent the rest of my days hunched back in the corner like the boy I was—that is until you were strong enough to walk and laugh around the place, and I roared out of my miserable crouch and made you pay for all I’d eaten from a hateful man. I’ve prayed to your mother’s soul in Heaven and have seen her gray eyes fixed right on me, but she hasn’t said a word till now—not pardon or pity or even a nod.

  You may still have a soul deep in you. I tried to kill it, but I hope it’s there. If so you might try to climb out far enough from where I flung you to face me anyhow and damn my life to Hell forever; or say you’ll try to sit beside me long enough—in some safe place—and let me beg as much of a pardon as you can give so both of us stand a chance at time, a few quick years when we could breathe in the same clean room.

  You know my address,

  Your actual father

  TOWARD HOME

  1

  THE WAITRESS had worked two straight shifts in the Christmas rush and was numb on her feet at past midnight; but this child had almost saved her day—she’d seldom seen a natural creature this good to watch. Maybe nine years old with chestnut hair below her shoulders, straight as a rail, and eyes so green you could swan-dive in.

  “What’s your name, heartbreaker?”]

  The man beside the child said “Lee.”

  “Well, Lee, you saved a tired girl’s life. I was ready to cut my throat till you showed.”

  Lee nodded, in serious thanks for the praise. She was less conceited than an April day; the praise was just a familiar fact—people liked to watch her. Still she looked up into the woman’s eyes and launched a smile.

  The woman turned to the man. “Granddaughter?”

  Hart lied—“No ma’m but thanks for the compliment.”

  She cleared their soup bowls and still was intrigued. So she dried her hand and gently tested a strand of Lee’s hair as if it might tarnish. “Say something, hon. Let me hear those tones.”

  The man said politely “She just speaks German, she’s being adopted, I’m taking her on to a new home now.“

  The part about German and being adopted was also a lie. But the claim that he was taking her home, or somehow finding home at last, was Hart’s true hope and had been now for nearly a month.

  He and the child met such questions more than daily. And the foreign language was the child’s idea. In early years she lived in Germany—her father was stationed there, a fighter pilot (Hart’s son, Alton). And the night that she and her grandfather ran, Lee taught him phrases in pidgin German. They hid behind those, at least when they saw no Germans near. So here with the waitress still beside them, Lee met Hart’s nervous grin and said “Was ist los in das gasthaus, Tonto?”

  Deadpan, Hart said “Nix, Kemo-sabe.”

  The waitress said “They got the Lone Ranger in Germany too?”

  Lee slipped and said “Ja.”

  They backed out fast and, bushed as they were, drove another hour north to Indiana in case the waitress called the law. Lee fell asleep on the seat fairly soon, though she moaned more than once and finally said her dead father’s whole name—“Alton Wright.”

  At three in the morning, just into Illinois, Hart found a room in a widow’s house (her sign was still lit). And Lee roused long enough to stumble in, be civil to the widow, choose the narrow white bed, peel to her cotton underwear and brave the cold sheets.

  Hart followed soon, in the wide oak bed, but was too worn out for instant sleep. He lay on his back and struggled hard to fend off both the sheet of blood that lately hung above his eyes, aching to fall, and the perfect memory of his son’s last words Please sir, no.

  2

  LEE’S ninth birthday was February 8th. By then they were calling her Nan in public; she’d cut her own hair boyish-short and rol
led it up each night in ringlets. They celebrated in a motel room in Iowa—lit one candle on a green cupcake and sang “Happy Birthday” (Nan sang too). Then she opened his sensible gifts—corduroy overalls, flannel shirt, stout brogans and leather gloves with rabbit-fur lining.

  She prized the feel of the blue-gray fur; and having it warm against her skin, she guessed what next. To Hart on the opposite bed, she said “We going on into the mountains then?”

  3

  HART was crouched behind the woodpile, grubbing in the last of the snow, when Nan called his name. At first he tried to hunch down lower, but then he thought Why not? We’re leaving. So he raised a long arm—“Here, old buddy”—and then went back to serious digging with the spade. She came so softly he didn’t hear a step; and once her shadow fell on his hands and stretched well past him—a ten-foot ghost—he thought for the first time She’s too old for this; she’s bound to know. But he smiled up at her.

  Nan held out one wild crocus, deep purple and flecked with ice. But what she said was “I bet we’re leaving.”

  Hart took the flower, smelled its neutral heart and returned it. “I think we better, with the road thawing fast—how did you guess?”

  “You digging up the money.”

  It startled him—he’d hid their money at night two months ago— and he sank both fists in the ground beside him to keep from falling.

  But Nan laughed. “Right after we got here, you went to Durango early; and when I got up, I looked out and saw that crook-tailed squirrel digging here. I thought he smelled the world’s best nut; he just wouldn’t stop. But after my coffee when I came out, I saw the lid of your jar and the cash. I packed the dirt back.”

  Hart couldn’t face her. He said “Just step in the cabin a minute.”

  “I’m with you, Grand. I want to be.”

  He nodded but once more waved her off.

  She held there a moment, then gave a child’s extravagant sigh and slowly turned. But before she moved too far to hear, she said “I’m counting on some place warm.”

  From where Hart knelt, near eight hundred dollars in a buried jam jar, he watched her leave as the finest thing he’d got in a stingy lifetaller by the day and, hid in all that admirable hair (exactly the shade of his own lost mother’s) was the mind he was living this nightmare for, to rescue her for actual life: the rest of her childhood anyhow. One long instant he begged in silence Go. Be safely gone when I get there. But well before Nan shut the door, Hart clenched his eyes and canceled the thought—Please, no. Grand’s all you got and he’ll save you yet.

  Even as he counted the frozen money and knew they could leave and move on west, he felt no relief but only a rush of threat from the blood, that patient tide of blood he’d stalled just out of sight. Through the short walk back—with red-tailed hawks in the trees above him, calculating that his flesh and eyes might see them through till the ground unlocked its mice and snakes—Hart begged again and again in a whisper Keep her please from asking. Let her just thank me and not ask why.

  4

  MEMORIAL DAY, they were in a dry hut near Gold Beach, Oregon playing cards (Hart dealt blackjack at a local saloon and had the night off). After a week of steady gray, they’d hoped for a glimpse of the sun but not yet; and it was past noon. Nan was now called Martha and had made a picnic when she woke early. So they broke it out—a can of salmon, saltines, cream cheese—and ate it while they played out their hands.

  When Martha saw she was bound to lose, she told herself You can dedicate this losing now and ask for the sun to shine awhile (in Germany she went to Catholic school; the nuns had taught her such useful facts). So she made that silent acceptance of loss; and almost before Hart could say “I won,” the sun fell in through a seaside window and lit them both like parched bonfires. Martha got up and said “Let’s walk.”

  Hart shuffled the cards for one more hand. “I got to give you a last chance to beat me.” But when he saw the flare in her eyes, much finer than the day, he stood and found the stick he carried on their rare walks. It was stout as a club.

  They’d gone no more than a hundred yards toward the high brown boulders when courage rushed on Martha like wings. She turned and waited for Hart to catch up. And when he was still four steps away, she put out her right hand—an open palm.

  He took it as if that were natural for them (when he’d barely touched her since the night they ran); and he thought they’d fall in together like always, in step, counting.

  But Martha pulled back and when Hart faced her puzzled, she said “Grand, tell me. Did we do it or not?”

  In two hard seconds, he understood; but he still said “What?”

  “Kill him.” Her face was clear as the whole sudden day. Since she felt no actual pain at the thought, her eyes were swept of dread or blame.

  Nothing in Hart’s life—fifty-eight years—had stood in reach as fine and awful as this child now. Young as she was, she’d earned at least some part of the truth; so he said “Not we, my darling. Surely not you.”

  “But it happened, I think. I saw it again two nights ago—a dream, I guess, but I recognized it.“

  The blood poured finally, all Hart could see through a long wait. He thought She’ll vanish. She’ll burn on off in this new light and leave me for good. He also thought that would be the just thing. But he met her face and told the truth “I did it for you.”

  “To spare me, right?”

  Hart shut his eyes and nodded.

  Martha—Nan—Lee took awhile; in her mind, she wondered Do I run? But she also knew her age and weakness. So she finally said “We could go back and make a new lunch and bring it out here.”

  5

  BY THEN she’d missed more than half a school year, with slim regret. But in late June with children skating past their windows, Martha began to miss the regular job of lessons and homework, dumb kids and laughing. So when Hart came in from work at six, she said “Grand, I’m ignorant”—she’d misread the label on a box of rice and had cooked enough for a Chinese family.

  He leaned to kiss the ends of her hair that was growing again. It was the nearest he’d come to speaking his love in all her life. Her hand came up, made a short ponytail; then she pranced three steps with a grace no horse on Earth possessed. So Hart laughed once. “You want to start back to school next fall?”

  To hear him say it was like quick dawn (she’d seen a good many). “In Yakima, here? We’ll be here then?”

  Hart said “I thought I told you we stopped.”

  “And you aren’t scared?”

  “I think I stopped that too. They’ve let us be.” He looked to the window above the sink. The single maple in healthy leaf and the clear straight edge of the white garage were part of a place he could hope to rest in, slim as hope was. Till here this minute, he hadn’t felt that in the whole long run. He very much feared he might break now and let her see how dark it was.

  But Martha was hard at work by the stove. She could barely reach the bottom of the pot; still she was stirring her ton of rice.

  At last he could say “And you’re all right?”

  She froze in place but didn’t turn. Then when she’d thought, she plainly told the room itself “I’m the child in this. I may well make it.”

  “Take a step more—can you say you’re fine?” More than ever, even faced away, she looked worth anything, pain or death.

  Martha waited and still didn’t turn; but she said “I’m cooking this big supper, O.K.?—for us, not the pitiful children abroad. You do your part.”

  He said “Say please.”

  But she’d said her piece. She set down her spoon and clamped both ears.

  So once Hart thoroughly washed his hands, he slowly set two spotless plates and real cloth napkins on the old cardtable.

  THE NAMES AND FACES OF HEROES

  AFTER AN HOUR I believe it and think, “We are people in love. We flee through hard winter night. What our enemies want is to separate us. Will we end together? Will we end alive?” And m
y lips part to ask him, but seeing his face in dashboard light (his gray eyes set on the road and the dark), I muffle my question and know the reason—“We have not broke silence for an hour by the clock. We must flee on silent. Maybe if we speak even close as we are, we will speak separate tongues after so long a time.” I shut rny eyes, press hard with the lids till my mind’s eye opens, then balloon it light through roof through steel, set it high and cold in January night, staring down to see us whole. First we are one black car on a slim strip of road laid white through pines, drawn slowly west by the hoop of light we cast ahead—the one light burning for fifty miles, it being past eleven, all farms and houses crouched into sleep, all riders but us. Then my eye falls downward, hovers on the roof in the wind we make, pierces steel, sees us close—huddled on the worn mohair of a 1939 Pontiac, he slumped huge at the wheel, I the thin fork of flesh thrust out of his groin on the seat beside him, my dark head the burden in his lap his only hollow that flushes beneath me with rhythm I predict to force blood against my weight through nodes of tissue, squabs of muscle that made me ten years ago, made half anyhow, he being my father and I being nine, we heading towards home not fleeing, silent as I say, my real eyes shut, his eyes on nothing but road. So we are not lovers nor spies nor thieves and speaking for me, my foes are inward not there in the night. My mind’s eye enters me calm again, and I brace to look, to say “How much further?” but he drops a hand which stalls me, testing my flannel pajamas for warmth, ringing my ankle and shin and ticklish knee (in earnest, tight not gentle), slipping between two buttons of the coat to brush one breast then out again and down to rest on my hip. His thumb and fingers ride the high saddle bone, the fat of his hand in the hollow I have, heavy but still on the dry knots of boyish equipment waiting for life to start. I roll back on my head to see him again, to meet his eyes. He looks on forward so I go blind again and slide my right hand to his, probing with a finger till I find his only wound—a round yellow socket beneath his thumb where he shot himself when he was eight, by surprise, showing off his father’s pistol to friends (the one fool thing I know he has done). My finger rests there and we last that way maybe two or three miles while the road is straight. Then a curve begins. He says “Excuse me, Preacher” in his natural voice and takes his hand. My eyes stay blind and I think what I know, “I love you tonight more than all my life before”—think it in my natural voice. But I do not say it, and I do not say I excuse him though I do. I open my eyes on his face in dashboard light.