Jewelweed

by David Rhodes

  “I need to use your phone.”

  “It’s on the wall.”

  Station dialed, talked for several minutes, hung up, and scowled.

  “Guess what?” he said.

  Silence.

  “The department is no longer funding tracer bracelets for release programs in rural areas.”

  Blake and Jacob remained silent.

  Station stepped outside and stood for several minutes, looking in. “Don’t forget to come give us a urine sample,” he said. “Before six o’clock. And if you find another place to stay, give me a call and I’ll come look it over.”

  Then he walked back to his car and left.

  After he was gone, Jacob asked Blake if he’d told his father about wanting to move.

  “Not yet—in case I couldn’t find a place or that bastard Station wouldn’t allow it. Besides, it might hurt his feelings, and then if I didn’t get to leave anyway, I mean—”

  “Good point,” replied Jacob. Just then a pickup pulled into the lot. There were two white-bearded men inside it, and a lawn mower in the back. Upon its arrival, the younger people who had been gathered in the lot drifted off. “You and your father still getting along?”

  “It’s impossible not to get along with my father. He enforces getting along. Sure, Dad and I get along just fine, but he needs more room and so do I.”

  Three days later, Jacob drove Blake to an abandoned farmhouse one mile out of town.

  “What’s this?” asked Blake, standing in the weedy yard.

  “This is a house you could rent,” said Jacob.

  “Whose is it?”

  “It used to belong to a friend of mine, July Montgomery. Now it belongs to a trust set up by a couple—a Madison lawyer and his wife—who are both dead now. Their children sold off the farmland a couple years ago, before the economy turned sour. They kept the house as a summer place, but the inconveniences of living in the country didn’t appeal to them, so they never used it. There’s a For Sale sign around here somewhere, or at least there used to be.”

  “You talked to them about renting it to me?”

  “Winifred did,” said Jacob, watching as a crow descended from the sky, landed briefly on the chimney of the house, and then flew away.

  “And the family was okay with, you know, the ex-con stuff?”

  “I guess they were. Winifred is fairly persuasive, so long as she can avoid antagonizing the people she’s talking to.”

  “So this is where July Montgomery lived?”

  “This is it. Do you remember him?” asked Jacob.

  “Can’t say I do,” said Blake, staring up at the brick house.

  Weeds, vines, and bushes grew riotously around the foundation, as if they were trying to pull the house into the ground. The windows needed caulk and paint. The bricks had been worn down, rounded by many seasons. And the roof’s integrity was questionable.

  “I heard about him, though,” offered Blake. “My dad hauled cows for him several times and they went to auctions together. I guess Dad and July once unloaded silo blocks together until they couldn’t move their arms.”

  “Sounds like something he’d do,” said Jacob. “He liked to work.”

  “My dad’s like that too,” said Blake. “There was a guy in Waupun who used to talk about July Montgomery a lot. According to him, when July was a little kid he survived for a long time—maybe ten years or longer—in an underground room. That’s what he said. Later, his wife was murdered by the government and July hunted down the perpetrators and killed them one by one. Then he came here. It made a good story, but I never knew how much of it was true. Most of the stories you hear in prison are like that.”

  “All stories are like that,” said Jacob.

  “You knew him pretty well, then?”

  “Not well enough.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He died out here alone. He was a good friend to me and I should have been a better one to him.”

  “Why weren’t you?”

  “I don’t know. Mostly blind ignorance, I guess—not paying attention.”

  “You were concerned with your own stuff,” offered Blake, somewhat surprised by Jacob’s candid manner, and by his own response to it. He was usually more guarded.

  “I suppose.”

  “Memories like that drive you crazy in prison,” said Blake.

  “They drive you crazy out here too.”

  “It’s not the same. Out here you can make up for things. Behind bars all you have are the regrets. Prison holds you in place while the regrets work you over. It’s one of the many ways the system is set up to turn you into cinder.”

  A dark silence radiated from Jacob. Blake felt him withdrawing.

  “So, what was he like, July Montgomery?”

  “Hard to describe. He didn’t care about the things most other people care about. And when you were with him you didn’t either. He lived an intensely private life, didn’t even own a television.”

  “Can we look inside the house?”

  Jacob took the key out of his pocket and handed it to him.

  “Aren’t you coming in?”

  “No.”

  Blake took several steps, stopped next to a thistle, looked from the house to the key, and asked, “How did he die?”

  “July was caught in a power take-off. Right over there.” Jacob pointed toward the wire corn crib, which rose up out of the ground beside the barn like a cylindrical rib cage.

  “That’s bad,” said Blake.

  “Winifred and I found him.”

  “No kidding. Right over there?”

  “In some ways I never got over it.”

  Blake felt compelled to say something meaningful, and his anxiety began churning away at gut level. “Did you ever think maybe there were some things you weren’t supposed to get over? Things that would take the rest of your life to work through?”

  “It’s a fair thought.”

  Blake felt relieved. At least he’d responded appropriately. And then he remembered what Winnie had said during one of her visits to the prison: unresolved traumas were gifts, she’d said. They were psychological chariots sent by grace, to be used for moving to better places. He wondered if he should tell Jacob. But perhaps he’d heard her say it too. Perhaps Jacob already knew that he was taking credit for something he had no right to, vulgarizing what had been a spiritual idea and presenting it drained of all religious content. Oh well, he thought, at least I recognized something good when I heard it. That counts for something. Besides, if people were required to use only original thoughts, it would take all day to simply say hello.

  “You’re hoping to ride your bike at night, aren’t you?” said Jacob.

  “I guess so.”

  “That’s a bad idea.”

  “I know it.”

  “You may not have noticed, but your release agent is hoping to give you enough rope to hang yourself. I hope you know that.”

  “I do,” said Blake, staring at the house again. “Will you come in with me? I don’t want to go in there alone, not the first time.”

  They walked up to the house.

  Making Ready

  Dart and Amy Roebuck went to visit Pastor Winifred, and Ivan came along. On the drive over the two women talked about a dream Amy remembered. Dart didn’t think it meant much of anything, but Mrs. Roebuck didn’t think it meant nothing. Ivan considered saying something about dreams, but his mother had been unpredictable lately and he was afraid she’d change her mind about him sleeping over. Ever since she’d started looking at herself in the mirror in that new dress, she’d been hard to read.

  They drove down the rutty drive and parked near the house. Dart told Amy to just ignore the junk in the yard, but from the way Amy stepped on the boards, tires, and pieces of rusted metal, it seemed clear that she wasn’t at all bothered by junk.

  Dart pounded on the door. When Winnie opened it she pretended she’d known Amy Roebuck all her life, and they all went inside. Ivan just stood
there a moment, wondering why adults did that. It seemed false, totally wrong. No one below the eighth grade would ever do that. It would never happen. If you don’t know someone very well, just keep your mouth shut, your eyes on the ground, and your hands in your pockets. Wait and see what happens. You might not want to have anything to do with them.

  Inside, a pan of cinnamon rolls steamed on the table. Mrs. Helm poured coffee, then started in on how beautiful Dart’s hair looked. She even persuaded her to take off her baseball hat. Amy joined in and the two of them roared off on how fabulous she looked, and how she should be doing more to show off how young she was.

  It suddenly occurred to Ivan that he wasn’t going to get one of those rolls. “Can I go find August?” he asked.

  “Of course,” said Winnie. “He’s been waiting for you in his room.”

  Ivan waited until his mother agreed.

  “Well, go on, Ivan,” she said. “You heard Pastor Winifred. Go on.”

  Halfway down the hall, Milton came swooping out of August’s room and made a couple swirling dives in front of Ivan.

  “Hey, Milton,” he said, “You’d better stay out of the kitchen. Enemies down there.”

  At the end of the hall the door was open and he walked in.

  “Ivan!” August shouted, jerking his head up from a pile of papers and books. He rushed over. “Did you just get here?”

  “Just about just.”

  They looked at each other and Ivan got that feeling he always felt with August: anything could happen now, and when it does it will be fun.

  “What are you doing?” asked Ivan.

  “Writing my report on the White Nose Syndrome fungus,” replied August, and went on to tell Ivan about the new disease.

  “Cripes,” Ivan said. “I’ll bet you know more about that fungus than anyone else in the world.”

  “Not even close,” said August. “I might hate it more than anyone else though. Oh, I forgot to tell you, tonight is the full moon.” Then he went on to tell Ivan about the jar of peaches, the Wild Boy, his meeting with the hermit, and the ceremony to burn the statues.

  “Cripes, tonight!” exclaimed Ivan, surprised and a little resentful of all the things August had experienced in his absence.

  “It’s one of the most significant events in human history,” explained August. “We need to camp out tonight and go over there after it gets dark.”

  “Let’s set up the tent,” suggested Ivan, “and put it by that dam we built.”

  “Good idea,” August said, and they went downstairs.

  The women were gone, and so were the coffee and the rolls. August and Ivan decided they must have carried them out to the garden.

  Ivan led the way.

  Sure enough, they were over by the fountain, at the little table. Winnie had opened the umbrella, and they were sitting under it, talking and talking.

  “Whoa,” said August, stopping and looking over the tops of the giant-headed flowers. Ivan looked too, but he was distracted by the sound of the bees and other insects. That was the thing about nature, he thought: wherever you looked something was happening.

  “Whoa what?” he asked.

  “They’re so different,” August said, pointing at the three women.

  He was right. They were as different as they could possibly be. Ivan’s brown mother, who’d been complaining about hot weather all week, had on those ridiculous new bright red shorts of hers, a blazing yellow harness top that didn’t reach her waist, a white baseball hat, white tennis shoes, and no socks. Directly beside her, Amy Roebuck’s wide, sunburned face was the color of a tomato. Her hair was perfectly arranged, light-brown and curly, and she wore a cream-colored blouse, dark green puddle-hoppers chopped off below the knee, anklebone-length green socks, and greenish-brown wooden clogs. And then there was August’s chalk-white mom, taking up only half the width of her chair, with straight hair, a black shirt, and a plain gray skirt that would have covered her black loafers and black socks had she been standing.

  They looked like three pieces from three different puzzles. But that didn’t keep them from getting along, which they were doing quite well. They all jabbered at once, stopping only to take quick breaths. As they talked on, they shifted positions, crossed their legs, folded their arms, made shapes with their hands, pointed with their fingers, leaned on the tabletop, stood up, drank coffee, and tore pieces of rolls out of the pan, sticking them in their mouths whenever the staccato exchange provided a rare opportunity.

  Ivan watched August approach these women. With his hands folded behind his back and in his preacher’s-son voice, he said, “Hi, Mom. Hello, Ms. Workhouse and Mrs. Roebuck.”

  The women froze. They stared at August as if he were a burning fuse leading up to a truck bomb. Ivan smiled. August often had that effect on people. There was something about him they were never quite prepared for. “Hi, August,” said Dart.

  “Is it all right if Ivan and I camp out tonight?” he asked.

  “If it’s all right with Ivan’s mother,” said Winnie.

  Dart simply nodded. August took a couple of rolls. On the other side of the garden he handed one to Ivan and they went back to the house to pack the things they needed for the night ahead.

  They filled a duffel bag with flashlights, a knife, some rope, August’s new bat detector, two water bottles, a snakebite kit, a waterproof container with matches, gifts for the hermit and the Wild Boy, and a handful of candy bars. The hermit would also need reading material, August added, and the Wild Boy would need nutrients to supplement his sporadic intake of honey, insects, herbs, and roots.

  “This is a story about a pet dragon,” Ivan said, staring at the book’s cover. “You really think the hermit will want it?”

  “It has an uplifting ending,” August said. “And Mr. Mortal, I’m afraid, is in danger of losing his faith.”

  “In what?”

  “Mankind.”

  “What’s this?” asked Ivan.

  “A jar of strawberry jam.”

  It took them the rest of the afternoon to set up camp beside the creek. They put August’s tent right next to the dam, and built a ring of firestones not far from the entrance.

  The pool of water seemed as deep as ever. “Hey,” called Ivan, “there’s something down there.”

  August came over and looked. “You’re right,” he said. Something glimmered on the bottom.

  “I’m going to get it,” he said. Then he dropped to his knees and stuck his arm in up to the shoulder.

  “I’d go easy with that,” said Ivan. “Could be a snapper down there.”

  When his arm came up, August had a big hunk of crystal on the end of it.

  “What is it?” asked Ivan.

  “Quartz.”

  “We didn’t put that in there,” Ivan said. “No way.”

  “It was the Wild Boy,” said August.

  “Why would he do that?”

  “I don’t know. And I also don’t know where he possibly found such a large piece.”

  “Let me hold it.”

  August was right. It was as big as a loaf of bread and stunningly clear.

  “We better put it back,” Ivan said, and they did.

  When August’s dad came home they went in for supper. A prayer was said by August’s mom, and they ate vegetables, soup, cheese, and grainy bread. There was a lot of talk about the ex-prisoner working for Jacob. He’d recently moved in to a run-down farmhouse outside Words. Winnie was worried about him.

  “He’ll be fine,” Jacob said.

  “I hope so,” said Winnie. “That house hasn’t been lived in for years. It’s in terrible condition.”

  “Blake needs a place of his own. His motorcycle is running now and he’s feeling fairly good about everything. Nate took a load of furniture out for him. They’ve got a couple rooms set up.”

  “There’s no central heat, for goodness’ sake.”

  “Blake won’t miss it any more than July did.”

  Mrs. Helm paused, c
losed her eyes for a moment, and continued: “I don’t know how you could bring yourself to go out there, Jacob. Every time I decide to go I get no farther than the drive. It’s too hard to go back.”

  “It wasn’t so bad this time.”

  “And you went inside the house?”

  “Blake didn’t want to go in alone.”

  “What was it like?”

  “Time had settled everything, but I could still almost imagine July walking out of one of the rooms.”

  “Don’t talk like that, Jacob. It betrays your superstitious nature. Ivan, don’t listen to him. Apart from several extremely rare examples of theophany—where a divine image of God appears to someone in less-fortunate countries—there are no ghosts.”

  “I know,” replied Ivan.

  “I thought you were going to invite him over for supper,” she said to her husband.

  “I was, but he and his father were going somewhere to eat smelt. Nate found a restaurant he hadn’t been to before and he was bringing his cousin along—someone named Bee. She wanted to ride there on the back of Blake’s motorcycle.”

  Winnie looked disappointed.

  “I’ll bring him another time.”

  “Could we be excused?” asked August.

  “I suppose,” said Mrs. Helm, looking from her lap to her uneaten plate of food and then back to Ivan. “Ivan, are you sure you’ve had enough to eat?”

  “I’m sure,” replied Ivan, and the two boys went off.

  Later that night, the full moon lit up the campsite. The air was hot, and loud with the sounds of insects and other creatures. They made a fire out of the best wood they could find.

  “What time is it?” asked August.

  “Time to leave,” Ivan said, and then they both heard something coming toward them out of the darkness.

  Jacob sat down next and stirred the fire with a stick. “Are you and Ivan thinking of going anywhere tonight?” he asked August.

  When August didn’t answer, he said, “I just wanted to let you know that I spoke with Lester a couple days ago. He mentioned that you might be coming over. I told him that would be all right with me and your mother.”

  “So it’s okay?” asked August.

  “Yes. Lester’s a good man. Some of the things he does are a little different, but you don’t need to be afraid of him as long as you remember to be respectful.”