A Peculiar Grace

by Jeffrey Lent

  For a moment he contemplated the possibility that the gates were done. Except for the mounting hardware they could go up and be beautiful. Wire brush them down and work them with steel wool and then warm the forge for a week running and apply coats of linseed oil as often as possible. He studied them, even intentionally blurring his vision to see them as if in passing. They were beautiful, but not done—he knew when a project was complete. So he would leave them a bit longer. The other option was to fire the forge and do small-job work, not the sort of things he sold but latches and hinges and such that he’d give to friends. Or use himself. There was a barn latch of forged iron that had broken that past winter.

  Timothy Farrell had said, “Take a chain now. Which link is the strongest?”

  The summer Hewitt was sixteen he’d been at a craft fair, tagging along with his mother, hoping to connect up with one of the freaks there and score some weed but found himself watching a fellow with a long ponytail over bib overalls with a portable forge and anvil pounding out the simplest of wall hooks. Hewitt stood watching until his mother had had enough of crocheted pot hangers and heavy pottery and dragged him away. But not until he’d seen the alchemy of the forge and the red-hot iron and also realized the work he was seeing was badly done.

  He asked around and found Albert Farrell. Albert was in his late eighties but happy to take Hewitt out to the forge behind his house and sit and talk with the boy. Albert had shod his share of horses and oxen in his day. But Albert was not a farrier. He was a smith. They worked together and by the end of three days Hewitt had beaten out a serviceable roasting fork, proud of the graceful curve of the handle down to the tines. Over the following weeks Albert taught by words as much as action and Hewitt learned the basics of the craft. How to evenly draw out a rod or bar, how to use the pritchel hole on the anvil to make a square right angle. How to put an even twist in a poker handle. How to mend his own tools.

  Finally Albert said, “You’re welcome to putter around out here all you like, long’s you don’t set fire to nothing. Tell you what though. I got a nephew. My brother’s boy. Well by Jesus I guess he’s more a man than you be now. Anyway he got the good blood. It came down through Pop who worked the fireboats in New York City and that was a long time ago but ain’t it all? Anyway Pop was a true man, an ironworker before anything else. Hell’s fire he’d use the boiler in the boats to heat iron to fix whatever needed fixing. I tell you what. You write Timothy a letter. Tell him I said to work the bejesus right outa you and you’ll learn the trade. Work with him a year or two and then if you come back here and pound out something other than a oven fork or door hook, why, I’ll give you all this. The tools and such. Otherwise it’ll all end up in a scrap yard. There’s tools here not another man owns. You know why? I made em myself.”

  The following spring he’d driven with his father to the Finger Lakes in western New York State, spent an afternoon and a long day talking and working with Timothy Farrell and arrangements were made. There was a sleeping loft in the forge. No money would change hands. Hewitt would earn his board by assisting Timothy with the simple work and in the process learn the details and techniques for the complicated work. There would be a two-week trial during which either one could call it quits. But Hewitt knew that wouldn’t happen. They were already easy with each other. Timothy was wiry and lean with tightly curled black hair cropped close to his head and a slow smile that seemed to live in the corners of his mouth.

  He said, “I’ll work you hard. If what you’re looking for’s here, you’ll find it.”

  Hewitt nodded. “I think it’s going to be a good summer.”

  Timothy said, “It’s a good life.”

  HE STOOD AND stretched, looked again at the gates. And still had no answer for those circles. Then in ten steps he ran up out of the forge where he heard her calling his name. Jessica was in the dirt of the drive, not far from her car and not far from the entrance to the forge. She wore sneakers, long nylon shorts and a sweatshirt two sizes too large, her hair wet from a bath, her eyes serious, stunned upon him.

  “I got scared. I didn’t know where you were.”

  “What,” he asked. “You think maybe I hitchhiked out of here?”

  She studied him, as if parsing his words. She said, “What do you want Hewitt? Me to hightail it out of here? You said you got gas.”

  “There’s a tank in the shed. It’s my tractor gas. But you know, that little Bug needs an oil change bad.”

  That darkling face. “You went through my car?”

  “I popped the back and took a look at things. She’s in pretty good shape except you’ll want to change your plugs sometime not too far off. And the oil. The oil’s bad.”

  “I know it is,” she said. “But I’ve kept it topped off. I been waiting to find a place to change it.”

  “That so?”

  “Hey,” she brightened. “Maybe I got the gas I could drive out and buy four quarts of oil and likely you got a place where I could back her up and drain the old sludge. A little wash or ravine or someplace like that. They make you pay to take used oil now.”

  Hewitt was thinking. “Well, that oil soaks on down until it finds a brook or river or into your spring water. It doesn’t just go away you know.”

  “Save the whales,” she said.

  “I keep old oil. I use a fair bit of it. So it’s no problem at all.”

  “What were you up to? You sure came running.”

  He said, “I was in my workshop.” An awkward word.

  And she heard it. “Your forge, right?” She went on. “Did you make that bed in your room?”

  He looked at her. The bed was simple with traditional arches for the head and foot boards but run through with leaves of ivy and brass snakes up the four corner posts and each post topped with a copper bunch of grapes. No apples there! The first truly beautiful thing he’d made, all in the haze of hangovers and small snorts.

  She said, “That’s right. I snooped. I can’t help it.” Then she said, “Who’s that pretty blond on your bedside table?”

  Hewitt breathed deep even as he nearly laughed at her choice of words. As if Emily herself was draped over that little nightstand instead of the framed photograph she was speaking of.

  He said, “I made the bed. And that girl’s an old girlfriend long gone. But that’s my business.” Before this could be pursued he said, “Well Jessica, this is what I was thinking. You’ve either got a lousy sense of direction or were just ambling your way to where you were going. Would it throw you too far off track to spend another day here? What I was thinking was we could fuel this Bug up and maybe you and I could take a little trip. No big thing. Just where I can’t get to on my tractor. There’s stuff I need and I could show you the sights. People spend fortunes to come up and ride around in the country and they never do see what they should see although of course they don’t know the difference. Because nobody but the local folks get off the main roads.”

  She spat into the dirt. “Goddamn. It’s cold up here.” There was gooseflesh on her thighs and arms.

  “Wait till midday. You’ll sing another song then. So what do you say, Jessica? Shall we drive around a little bit?”

  She looked all around the yard, her head moving as if taking it all in for the first time. She said, “You don’t have a car.”

  “I used to.”

  “Did you wreck it?”

  “There was a time I couldn’t have more than a couple drinks and had to get out and roam around. I was lucky I never hurt anybody except myself. And yup, the last one did in the car.”

  “You never got another one?”

  “Can’t drive. The state took my license. I use the tractor to get back and forth to the village and mostly get what I need there. But every now and then it’s nice to get out. That’s pretty much what I was thinking of.”

  “It’s not like there’s a soul waiting for me to arrive anywheres.” As if she had revealed herself she shook her head and turned partway from him so all he could
see was the tip of her nose and cheekbone and the hair over her ear on that side.

  A plume of tenderness washed over him.

  It was as if each pebble and the grains of dirt between those pebbles kept her in some acute study or potential rapture or both. Her eyes snaked slow across the ground between them, finally striking his boots to work their way up his pantlegs and shirt where they rested or perhaps even sank deeply into the skin of his lower throat exposed behind the open collar of his shirt.

  He waited.

  Finally her eyes came to meet his. Her dark eyes seemed wet to him but with no evidence of tears. Looking into her eyes he felt his mouth twist one end up and the other down, his own hidden sorrow unleashed beyond command.

  She said, “How far are you talking about?”

  “Not so far. Over the river to New Hampshire. Twenty-five, thirty miles.”

  She nodded. “Let’s do it. Although I’m not sure I can pay you just now for the gas. But I’ll get you the money. I will.”

  Hewitt considered this. She wasn’t strictly saying she didn’t have any money but the implication couldn’t be avoided. Of course she might be fine for what she needed but saw no reason to pay for his joy ride. And it might even be possible she worked this angle, the poor stricken girl every chance she got. He shrugged and said, “It’s a small spit of gas. I’m happy to spare that if we could get out and let me shop a little. You don’t have to worry about paying me back. We’d be even is how I see it.”

  She paused. A moment of consideration. Then smiled and said, “That bed is sure beautiful. Can I see your forge?”

  He smiled back. “Nope.”

  ONCE ON THE narrow dirt roads she drove as if she’d been on them all her life, easing along at thirty-five or forty miles an hour. They were climbing up through woodlands that opened here and there for a house lot or a somber wornout century-old sheep pasture or down in the low spots small bits of bog. Coming onto any sort of turnoff or intersection he’d silently point the way, giving her plenty of time to note his choice and the ride was smooth and unhurried. She was quiet and that was fine. Her legs and arms were pale white, causing him to wonder where exactly she’d come from most recently.

  His boots rested on a cushion of trash and a quick glance down told him her comments about her diet were understated. She seemed to have an affinity for Coca-Cola in cans and Snickers candy bars. And even with the backseat emptied there remained the reek of the unwashed. He glanced over at her. She was intent on her driving but also active, her eyes and sometimes her face moving to take in all around her, as much of what was passing as she could.

  He finally spoke. “So’d you paint this car yourself or’d it come that way?”

  She flipped her head at him, eyes hooded and hair bouncing his way. She said, “I told you I plain don’t have any perspective.”

  They drove on. For the next mile or so he felt as if he was taking the temperature inside the little car. Things felt alright. He put his right foot over his left knee which was a considerable job and twisted the least bit sideways toward her in his seat and as if commenting on what a fine day it was said, “So what happened to you, Jessica?”

  If she was upset or perturbed by his question she did not show it but drove on in silence long enough so he had to point another road juncture. He wondered if she was taking this time to prepare her answer or simply to have rote words appear that way. And immediately decided that he could not do that: even if he was wrong in the end he had to trust her. Or there was no point to any of this.

  She said, “You don’t smoke, do you? I mean cigarettes. I could use a cigarette just now.”

  “I never liked it. Made food taste funny and I couldn’t smell a thing.”

  “Well there’s other things do worse than that. But it’s not like I need to smoke, you understand?” She glanced at him.

  A hen partridge dusting in the side of the road blew off. Hewitt said, “But sometimes it comes in handy.”

  “This was my grandma’s car she gave to me when I turned sixteen so I could get back and forth to work and school. I was trying pretty hard about then. And my grandmother was the only one who really ever understood me. The Bug was twenty years old with thirty thousand miles on it and Grandma’s eyes were failing her so it was a good thing all around, school all day and then drive up to Oxford to waitress at the Holiday Inn and then home to do my schoolwork, at least what wasn’t done in study hall already which was most of it—I hated getting home at ten thirty eleven o’clock at night wasted from smoking pot with the guys worked the kitchen and try to do homework. But even then things had gone downhill and I knew I was dancing not walking like everybody else. You know what, Hewitt, it’s a pure shithole trying to figure out what was really going on with me and what others said was. It was a fuck all the way round. A bad one. You know what I mean.”

  “I believe I do.”

  “I was a happy little girl, at least I thought I was. Sure there was weird shit going down in my family but I never seen a family didn’t have that. I thought I was normal. I had my moments but I thought it was just part of life, of growing up. Like when the thoughts in my head got racing far ahead of what I could keep up with. Or times when I would get so lonesome for no reason I could name that I’d lay on my bed and cry. But it all seemed okay. Course my mama and daddy weren’t talking much to each other but I never saw any fights either.”

  Hewitt heard the pause and said, “That doesn’t sound so strange to me. I think most growing up is like that. One way or another.”

  She drove on a while. Hewitt was a little lost but knew where east west north south were and so he just waited for the roads to proclaim themselves. At some point they would start downhill and all would be clear from there.

  Jessica said, “All the sudden not a thing made sense. It was so fucking weird, Hewitt. I was going along and doing fine I thought and all the time my mama and plenty others were talking about me behind my back. It was about this time my daddy run off to Memphis with that girl Tina which I don’t much blame him for. It was more show than he was getting in Water Valley. Or being a diddly country lawyer. And I shit you not, Hewitt. I think in my heart that’s where things really went wrong. You can’t be sixteen years old and have your daddy run off with a woman just barely out of college herself and not expect some effect. Kids have that shit happen all the time. But me, I rolled up like a caterpillar touched with a stick. But the thing, the funny thing is everybody had to believe it was bigger than it was. While all it was was just me. For a good while I was out of school more than in. Dragged here and there to see different doctors who expected me to explain myself to them which was like asking dirt to explain itself and they would get angry or frustrated and decide I needed some kind of pills. Except they wouldn’t work. Off we’d go to another one. And more pills to try. I felt like I was the itsy-bitsy spider there for a while. And the drugs were like a long dragged-out dreary day with nothing to do. Then came the afternoon I overheard the doctor talking to my mother about maybe having me hospitalized. For my own good, he said. For the first time I was really scared. I realized those fuckers could do anything they wanted to, so I stopped fighting them. I took the pills and went to my sessions and did my best to look like I was trying to do my best, which is what they want. They don’t want more than that I can tell you. That lasted six months and I counted every minute of every hour of those days. I kept taking the pills because there was too many people keeping track. But I still had my waitress job and there was this guy Daryl working the kitchen I trusted. So I saved up a couple hundred dollars and one night I went to work and never did go home again. I’d smuggled clothes out a piece or two at a time until the front of that Bug was stuffed full. That night after work I went over to Daryl’s house and we pulled the Bug into his garage and shut the doors and he had all these cans of spray paint and we smoked reefer and did a few lines and stayed up and painted this fucker ever which way we could think to. About four in the morning I drove the fuck out o
f there. Summertime and that red sun coming up like the eyeball of the world turned upon me so I went until I hit the interstate and turned west. Not because I had a plan. I just had to get rid of that sun.”

  Hewitt remained silent. They were dropping down through the last hillside and while she couldn’t see it, he knew those flashes low in the trees were sunlight on the big river. After a time he said, “When was that?”

  She didn’t look at him. “I guess close to ten years.”

  “You ever been back?”

  Now, one hand on the wheel she glanced over at him, the other hand pushing her hair clear of her face. “I float in and out,” she said. “I go close enough long enough to keep the car up to date paper-wise. Basically,” she looked hard at him, “I’m doing the best I can.”

  TOO MANY HOLES, was what Hewitt was thinking as he went about his errands. She turned herself loose in Hanover, agreeing to meet back at the car in an hour.

  So he paused after delivering the mixed case of wine to the backseat of the VW that at least here in Hanover wouldn’t attract the sort of scrutiny it might in other towns around. Even the story of that paint job. What was that about? She was smart enough to know you can repaint a car but with the same plates they can find you if they want to. The multiples of they that might apply. Yet her telling had been so matter of fact, nearly off the cuff as if the story related what happened to someone else instead of an ongoing present.

  This all told him nothing he hadn’t known yesterday when he found her at her spindly campfire up in his woods. The details provided since were nothing more than a half-dozen nails in the walls of an otherwise empty room that he might hang her fragments of story upon.

  He knew the smart thing was to send her ass down the road.

  He also knew he wasn’t about to do that. At least not yet. His curiosity was piqued. Beneath this was a genuine desire to know more.

  He whistled softly, almost a whisper of a whistle as he hiked down the street to the Co-op where he could buy the couple of sacks of grocery items he couldn’t purchase closer to home.