Linden Hills

by Naylor, Gloria;

  Willie knew how to do it. Just close his eyes and let the images swirl about as he emptied his mind. The first line would always come that way. Just close his eyes, relax his mouth, and it would create itself. And once it was there, the first line, the next and the next would be as inevitable as his breath. The process always frightened him a little. The way it would come from nowhere, push itself up from some space inside him, full-blown and demanding to spread. In a way, it was like playing God. The first seeds for everything in the world must have followed a blueprint like this. Fractured roofs and sloping lawns, broken tree branches and wedding cakes swirled in his mind. Crystal chandeliers splintered, doorbells chimed and chimed, sending up echoes that made him shudder. But he kept himself suspended, feeling it grow up from his center, threatening to make him lose his balance and go tumbling to the floor or crashing out through the closed window. Christmas trees of all shapes and sizes. Ruth’s face melting into Lester’s face into Nedeed’s face. Nedeed’s face tightening into a ball and then bursting into liquid circles that curled into fingers, shooting out at him and encircling his brain. Nedeed’s face dripping from the housetops, moving like dark volcanic lava down the slope of Tupelo Drive.

  He was almost there. At that terrifying place where his groin contracted and release was demanded before his mind went over the edge. He kept pushing himself toward that dangerous point. He couldn’t stay awake forever. And those dreams would never end until he had the first line. And if he had just that one, he could sleep. He would have made peace with those night images. If they were anything, they were that: the first line unborn. It came with an expulsion, a relief that always felt like ejaculation and, more often than not, brought tears to his eyes. And once it was out of his mouth to be heard by his ears, he knew he was committed.

  Willie’s sigh misted the cold windowpane—a round, iridescent fog. He got down from the ledge, the chill stiffening his joints, and he moved like an old man as he undressed. Twenty syllables. Later, they could be arranged to form any pattern he wanted. Usually, the poems ran in a series of stress on the fourth and third, fourth and third. But it wasn’t always necessary and he was too tired to care. The first lines were there, so he could sleep now. Willie pulled the blankets over himself without fear, welcoming the drowsiness he didn’t have to fight anymore. There would be no dreams tonight. Before he drifted off to sleep, he followed a childhood habit, repeating the lines in a soft chant that assured they would be remembered in the morning. “There is a man in a house at the bottom of a hill. And his wife has no name.”

  Her name was Willa Prescott Nedeed. After thinking about it for hours, she knew she was safe starting from there. She had owned that first name for as long as she had the face she was now certain that she possessed. The aluminum pot was held firmly on her lap. Thirty-seven years ago she had been born and given the name Willa. It wasn’t thirty-eight years yet, because her birthday was June 14 and that was in late spring. It wasn’t spring yet. It was winter because it was cold down there. She didn’t know how her mother decided upon the name Willa. She remembered asking her once and being told that she just liked the rhythm; it was lyrical and delicate.

  She took her first steps to the sound of those two syllables. Pink ruffled dress, matching hair ribbons, and soft-bottom shoes with bells on the laces. “Come, Willa, Willa.” Yes, when she first got off her knees with the exhilarating discovery that her feet could take her anywhere in the world, she directed them toward outstretched arms calling that name and telling her that her final choice of that destination made her a “good girl, good girl.” The shoes kept changing. Saddle oxfords in grade school, maroon loafers in high school, platform heels in college. Her feet were the only part of her body she didn’t grow up despising and she regretted that they had to be covered. So she had always loved beautiful shoes. When no one ever picked her to be partners in Double Dutch, she could stand in the corner of the school yard and stare at her polished toes. The penny loafers that never took her on a date at the drive-in were still rubbed with oil every Saturday night. The French heels that never danced at the senior prom carried her up to the stage where she received her graduation certificates for perfect attendance and civic duty. The applause then was good and loud. Fine, but the name Prescott had come from her father. It had belonged to his father and the father before that. So there was little choice on his part about her last name.

  Both of those people were now dead. The people who made Willa Prescott. But Willa Prescott Nedeed was alive, and she had made herself that. She imported the white satin pumps that took Willa Prescott down the aisle six years ago and brought her back up as Willa Prescott Nedeed. Her marriage to Luther Nedeed was her choice, and she took his name by choice. She knew then and now that there were no laws anywhere in this country that forced her to assume that name; she took it because she wanted to. That was important. She must be clear about that before she went on to anything else: she wanted to be a Nedeed. After all, every literate person in the Western world knew it was a good name.

  A thousand images now sprang up and threatened to fracture themselves, blurring Willa’s resolve to reach a clear answer to a simple question: How did she come to be exactly where she was? She pushed away what had happened or why it happened. If there was any hope for her at all, it rested solely on the how: How did she get down in that basement? Okay, so far she had the facts that thirty-seven years ago she had been born Willa Prescott and six years ago Willa Prescott married Luther Nedeed, became Willa Nedeed, and Willa Nedeed in a pair of suede boots walked into a white clapboard house in a place called Linden Hills. Yes, keep it simple. Keep on the track, and there just might be hope. She took another small sip from the pot, concentrated, and went on.

  Now, she wanted the name Willa Nedeed. She wanted to walk around and feel that she had a perfect right to respond to a phone call, a letter, an invitation—any verbal or written request directed toward that singular identity. And she did that. She became a wife and less than a year later she walked into Hyacinth Memorial, this time with leather moccasins on, and became a mother. She gave birth to a son. The doctor said it was a good, clean delivery. She almost lost control then, but she pressed the pot into her middle and took a deep breath. Yes, she had given birth to a son. That made her a mother. The child was fed and bathed, and kept from harming himself before he understood the danger of sharp objects and hot stoves. He was clothed properly for the weather. He had toys and, later, books—alphabet books because he was just learning to read. She gave him her attention and her time, so he learned to speak and then form sentences. And he began to learn the difference between right and wrong. He was guided and corrected. Now, with that evidence she could be tried by any court in this galaxy or the next and be acquitted as a good mother.

  And while she was doing all that, she was also being a wife. She cleaned his home, cooked his meals. His clothes were arranged, his social engagements organized. When he chose to talk about his work, she listened. And she was careful not to bring him petty household problems that might overburden him more than he already was. She accepted without complaint their separate bedrooms and the fact that she spent all those nights alone, that he could be distant and distracted at times, that so much of his life just couldn’t include her. Once again, with that evidence, she could be tried by any court in this galaxy or the next and be acquitted as a good wife.

  All right, she was still safe. But now she had to be extremely careful when she took it from there. Willa Nedeed was a good mother and a good wife. For six years, she could claim that identity without any reservations. But now Willa Nedeed sat on a cot in a basement, no longer anyone’s mother or anyone’s wife. So how did that happen? She stared at the concrete steps leading up to the kitchen door. It happened because she walked down into this basement. That was simple enough; that was clear. In a pair of canvas espadrilles, she walked down twelve concrete steps away from her home and into a room that was cold and damp. Willa had to squeeze her eyes tightly so she would s
ee only those steps. It was so easy at this point to see the cots and shelves of food, the clothes and blankets that awaited her. So very easy to recall the bitter argument that was planned up to the final outburst that manipulated her down those steps. The sound of the bolt as it slid into place. The intercom that kept clicking on and off with insane messages about adultery, the complexion of the child, and lessons to be learned. As important as it was, none of that was really at the center of exactly how it happened. It happened because, taking one step at a time, she descended those basement steps. And since the Prescotts conceived a baby girl with healthy leg muscles and tendons, she had started walking down them from the second she was born.

  If she took it a millimeter beyond that, her thoughts would smash the fragility of that singular germ of truth. Its amber surface quivered in her mind, a microscopic dot of pure gelatin, free from the contamination of doubt or blame. That action was hers and hers alone. The responsibility did not lie with her mother or father—or Luther. No, she could no longer blame Luther. Willa now marveled at the beauty and simplicity of something so small it had lived unrecognized within her for most of her life. She gained strength and a sense of power from its possession. Her back straightened and she looked around the basement, replaying each moment spent there through this new and awesome reality. There was regret—oh God, there was that—lying in the shrouded body of her son. But that too became her sole possession as the soft amber cell began to spread on its way to setting up roots in the center of her being.

  Upstairs, she had left an identity that was rightfully hers, that she had worked hard to achieve. Many women wouldn’t have chosen it, but she did. With all of its problems, it had given her a measure of security and contentment. And she owed no damned apologies to anyone for the last six years of her life. She was sitting there now, filthy, cold, and hungry, because she, Willa Prescott Nedeed, had walked down twelve concrete steps. And since that was the truth—the pure, irreducible truth—whenever she was good and ready, she could walk back up.

  A full winter moon, hanging low in the sky, illuminated the curving road in front of Willie and Lester as they made their way down the final slope of Linden Hills. They were leaving the high walls and hedges of Tupelo Drive behind them, and the tall pines that blocked the view of the cemetery disappeared. A short wooden fence allowed the moonlight to shine on the even rows of lime headstones that ran to the bottom of the hill on both sides of the Nedeed home. The white clapboard house seemed ringed by light as the moon washed over the frozen circle of water surrounding it. The wind was strong at their backs, and they had to lean against it and lock their legs to keep from sliding down the icy road.

  “I don’t blame that guy for not wanting to tackle this last turn,” Lester said. “With those lousy tires that gypsy cab woulda been stuck here till spring.”

  “It sure is quiet down here.” Willie pulled his neck deeper into his collar. “And did you notice, there are no more streetlights. If the moon wasn’t out, we could never find this place.”

  “Well, it’s not like there are a whole lot of choices,” Lester said. “The road ends here and eventually even a blind man would have to stumble onto that house since it’s the only one down here.”

  “Yeah, and you’d think they’d want an easier way to leave home than driving all the way back up this hill. Tupelo Drive could have kept right on into Patterson Road. I know that’s what runs behind Nedeed’s house. And with him having a business and all …”

  “His business is right at his front door.” Lester pointed to the cemetery as they passed. “See how low he built that fence? He probably just hauls the bodies over.”

  “Aw, come on.” Willie laughed.

  “Naw, I guess not having the roads intersect just gives him privacy. Nobody’s got any reason to come down here unless it’s to see him. And he doesn’t need hedges or anything ’cause of that lake.” Lester shook his head. “A strange dude.”

  “To say the least.”

  They walked in silence for a few moments.

  “You know, Willie …” Lester watched where he placed his feet. “I get the feeling that you know a lot more about Nedeed than you’re letting on. I mean, all that crazy business yesterday about him seeing that woman who killed herself. And then the day before that, your freaking out about coming here tonight. Remember, I’m in this with you, too. And if there’s something I should know, why don’t you just come out with it?”

  “Look, you know a lot more about Nedeed than I do. I never laid eyes on the man before this week. I didn’t want to say nothing about those footprints ’cause I wasn’t really sure. And even on an outside chance they were what I thought they were, I didn’t even know what it all meant.”

  “Yeah, but why did I have to find out from Braithwaite? I mean, if he didn’t say anything, I really believe you never would have told me.”

  “That’s not true, Les. It’s just that everything got a little wild yesterday—with the cops and people and all. And when you think about it, what have I seen that you haven’t this week? I haven’t been anyplace you haven’t been. God, we might as well have been married, as much time as we’ve spent together.”

  “That’s no lie. The only thing we didn’t do is sleep together.”

  Willie cringed, and Lester noticed it. “How have you been sleeping lately, Willie? Still get those dreams?”

  “Naw, I slept like a baby last night—honestly. And I finally figured out what it was. I haven’t been able to make up any new poems this week and it was bothering me.”

  “Are you kidding me? How’d you expect to find the time to do that? I’d get home and be too tired to even eat, some nights. Ya know, it even got to the point where my mom asked me if I was working too hard. I must have looked pretty bad for her to tell me to slack up. And yet people wonder why black folks ain’t produced a Shakespeare.”

  “Well, I don’t have any hopes of being that. But I think I can come pretty close.”

  “Then you better find an easier way to make a living. Or come up with some scheme to hit it big quick so you can sit up in one of these cushy pads on Tupelo Drive and compose your masterpieces.”

  “Yeah, but do you remember us meeting any poets down here? You’d think of all the places in the world, this neighborhood had a chance of giving us at least one black Shakespeare.”

  “But Linden Hills ain’t about that, Willie. You should know that by now.”

  “So where’s the answer for someone like me, Shit?”

  Even as Willie asked, he knew there would be silence. He glanced back over his shoulder and the sight almost made him stop walking. Infinite rows of rectangular and round windows were sending a mellow glow out into the night. All of Linden Hills stretched up in a magnificent array of colors. The snowy incline was blazing with reds, blues, and greens forming designs everywhere, from circles to each pattern of the constellations. Tiny electrical stars flickered in the bare tree branches and outlined the driveways and roofs. A lump formed in Willie’s throat. God, it was so beautiful it could break your heart.

  “Maybe,” Lester said softly, “maybe there’s a middle ground somewhere. For me as well as you. I know I can’t keep living off my mother forever. And it costs money to keep up a house even if there’s no mortgage. There’s repairs and property taxes. But …” He sighed. “But I don’t know why it must be one or the other—ya know, ditchdigger or duke. But people always think that way: it’s Linden Hills or nothing. But it doesn’t have to be Linden Hills and it doesn’t have to be nothing—ya know, Willie? I mean, in spite of all the propaganda and those ads and crap that Nedeed floods the world with, there are other places to live. But it’s sorta easy to forget that. I mean, what’s so special about this place? Just look at it. This is the end of Linden Hills and look at it.”

  They were now at the edge of Nedeed’s lake and Willie did look, long and hard. The house was unbelievably simple compared to the ones farther up. The only thing that gave it an aura of distinction was the h
uge frozen lake it seemed to be built on. The moon showed up the plain, boxed lines of the wooden planks immaculately preserved under white paint. The three-sided open porch held a double swing and that was the only decorative feature besides the long shutters on each of its windows. Even with its three stories, it could have been dwarfed easily by any home on Tupelo Drive. It sat there quiet and unlit, almost shrinking under the expansive wash of moonlight.

  “There are no lights on. Do you think he’s home?”

  “Oh, he’s home,” Lester said. “He always struck me as the type who likes to sit in the dark.”