by Rick Bass
She would stand there in the first silence after the bus had gone away and look around at the immensity of the lane down which she would be traveling, and at the blue sky beyond the tops of those trees, and she would be seized with a happiness, a joy so fierce as to be almost frightening: a joy that was as unquestionable as it was inexplicable and unearned. She had done nothing to deserve such upwelling, she knew, and knew also that no one in the world had ever experienced such euphoria; certainly, she had never witnessed it in anyone in her family. It made her feel alien and secret, but in no way did she want to give up the secret. It was almost always there, in the silence, and in the walking.
On warm days there would be box turtles on the trail, the red and orange and brown patterns on their skulls perfectly matched to the hues and tones of the fallen leaves, so that it was impossible not to understand that the earth had made them, had breathed them up from the soil with a desire for there to be a perfect match and fittedness. The turtles moved slowly through the leaves, in that mild sunlight, as if there were so little difference and distance between the animate and the inanimate as to render any of the old rules and laws of life irrelevant, or inaccurate—as if she had stepped into a new land, new territory, where other, better laws applied.
Birds flitted in the roadside privet, birds with names she did not know, and the sound of the birds she did know: crows fussing over something in a language so familiar to her that she no longer thought of it as fussing, instead found it only a comfort, and the ax-like drumming of woodpeckers back in the swamp, the smaller flickers and the showy pileateds. Floyd had talked about seeing the Lord-God woodpeckers, the ivorybills, when he was younger and working in the woods with his father, but they were gone now, and she supposed it was no one's fault—they had simply been too rare and special, and went away.
Perhaps best of all was the dry, gentle rustling of the leaves as the breeze stirred them, and the slightly louder rustling of them as she trudged in a straight line through them, chosen for happiness.
The creek, then, with its broad gurgle as she approached it, and, gradually, the faint sounds of the mill. Every sound in the world was hers, every sound surrounded her, was made for her, poured into her, and gave her the power of her joy. She could barely stand it, and although she would soon enough become accustomed to her duties and obligations of watching over Jim Ed and Bonnie, she was not yet fully enmeshed in that identity: she was just a girl singing, other times walking, and free from everything.
The day she remembers singularly from all the other walks was little different from any other, with but one exception. It was the day the sandhill cranes went over, birds she did not recall having ever heard before, or certainly having ever seen.
She heard their cries from a long way off, and at first confused them with the much-familiar honking and braying of geese.
As the sound drew closer, however, she quickly was able to discern the difference. The cranes' callings were a rhythmic, gravelly croak, sounding both exultant, like the geese, and labored, somehow more primitive. Not imperfect, but rough; and in that roughness, there was power. In no way did they seem to fit the sky—instead, they seemed to be fighting the sky—but in that conflict, they seemed also to be imbued with tremendous power.
They came closer—she could see them through the trees now, wings rising and falling slowly, long necks outstretched, and long legs—and she had never seen anything like them. They looked like dinosaurs—as if they had come flying in from the past—and she realized with a mix of excitement and some small fear that they were coming her way. She watched them draw closer and thought about calling out to them, even trying to imitate them, but for some reason dared not. They flew low over the tops of the trees, still croaking, and instinctively she pressed tight against a tree and watched as they flared, circled, then began landing in a small field on the other side of the hedge, their long legs outstretched like those of men and women, and long wings uplifted.
Landing heavily in the field, more like paratroopers than birds, with no transition or settling-in whatsoever, they began striding and strutting, flapping their wings and bobbing their heads with their long beaks as if moving to some music only they could hear, even as the sky still held the echo of their croaking calls.
Some of them began pecking at insects in the field, crickets and grasshoppers made sluggish by the October sun, and Maxine remained motionless, watching and listening, as the birds muttered to one another.
Finally—frightened, yet rapt at witnessing this other nation, this gathering, unobserved—she made some small inadvertent movement that one of the cranes noticed. The bird's eyes widened in fear, and with a great rasping shout it took three quick steps across the field and launched itself into flight, with all the others following it immediately, unquestioning as to what had alarmed their compatriot, understanding only that they had to leave, though not knowing how or why; and at such leave-taking, Maxine felt a small, deep pleasure, a pride and power, though some shame as well.
The birds rose around her with a clapping of wings, bodies awkward at first and brushing against one another—though in seconds they had gained grace, had sorted themselves out and were in a flock once more, circling low over the field and flying away, spying her now with their keen eyes—and then they were gone and there was only their sound, as beautiful as before.
Maxine leaned against the tree moments longer, feeling weak-legged, partly wanting the birds to return but also wanting to be going before they returned, if they did decide to return. She pushed away from the tree and hurried home.
And when Birdie asked her what had taken her so long, Maxine was surprised by her evasiveness, saying only that she had gotten tired and stopped to rest.
For some reason it seemed important to her to hold on to her secret. As if it was some slight distance she could keep between herself and everyone, even her beloved family. As if that distance was something she felt she might somehow need someday, despite the way things would turn out, and the way they would be drawn together, woven into the brittleness of what lay waiting.
A MOVIE
MAXINE'S HAVING a down day—where are the up days? It's another day wrought with aches and humiliations, and she's thinking, as she has begun to do, that maybe the glory and the chase for glory just weren't worth it. She's just about to convince herself, on this bottom-most day, that her life has been a huge mistake, a huge tragedy of waste and squander, when the call comes.
The voice is small, high but strong, sounding almost like a woman's, but with some faint timbre that Maxine can somehow, despite her diminished hearing, identify as male. There are times when she can no longer trust her hearing, but that's her guess here, and though she's a little surprised—it's a young voice—it makes sense to her that the industry should be run by ever-younger executives.
The young man—somehow, she knows—is mannered, calling her Mrs. Brown. "Mrs. Brown," the high little voice says, "I saw your advertisement in the Piggly Wiggly, and I would very much appreciate the opportunity to assist with your project in any way that I might." A pause, a kind of breathlessness, which in turn gets Maxine's breathing to come faster. A leap of her fragile old heart, summoned to blind harmony with that of the hope in the voice on the other end of the line.
There's something strange about the voice, something she should be able to place or identify, but can't quite. Not the identity of the speaker, but the nature. It's a voice she's never heard before, but still it seems like one on which she should be able to get a better read.
No matter: there was no harmony she could not match, in either tone or spirit. The little voice on the line has called for her, as she knew it would— no work is ever wasted. So sudden is her uplift that she could be a marionette worked by the strings above, jiggling once more after fifty years of stillness, or a prisoner in shackles and manacles, the chains jerked roughly by the jailer.
In her mind, however, there is no awkwardness in the ascent, only lilting flight. She hears th
e young person's voice and is with him in an instant, a soul for sale, her soul for a crumb of hope.
"I don't have much experience," the voice says, "but I have a strong interest in the subject and am confident my enthusiasm and work ethic will overcome any shortcomings. I feel like I can provide a fresh perspective."
"Yes," Maxine agrees, "it can be hard to get started. But everybody's got to begin somewhere."
"Wonderful," the filmmaker says. "When would be a convenient time for us to meet? I have my calendar right in front of me."
Now, she wants to say, come on over right now. But she's not ready. She wants to savor it a little, though not for too long. Sometimes old people go to sleep, she knows, and just don't wake up. Wouldn't that be a tragedy, she thinks, to wait all her life for a movie and then to not get to see it—to miss out on the process by a week or two, or even a few days?
"How about in an hour?" she asks, and the executive, or the artist—she's not quite sure yet how to think of him—pauses, then asks her location.
She gives him her address—she hears a muffled exchange with someone in the room—and then he gets back on the line and says that that will be splendid.
"What is your name, if I may ask?" Maxine says, just before hanging up, and in that high small voice, not quite a girl's or a woman's voice, he says, "Jefferson," and Maxine thinks, Aha, I was right.
"It's a pleasure to speak with you, Jefferson," she says. "I'll see you in an hour."
"Yes, ma'am, I look forward to it. Thank you ma'am."
She hangs up and hurries to her downstairs closet and her cardboard box, and begins spreading different outfits across the couch and the backs of chairs. She's shaking so hard, she worries that indeed she might have a stroke or heart attack, and the idea that she might miss her goal by so narrow a margin causes her to begin crying.
She doesn't cry for long, however—it takes too much energy, uses resources she doesn't have to spare, and similarly, she does not try on a variety of outfits the way she would have done as a younger woman. It's too exhausting; she'll have to get it right the first time.
She chooses red—she prefers black, and has always worn black, but she feels strongly the need to try to change her luck—a red turtleneck sweater, and black and white hound's-tooth knit pants. She remembers as if it were yesterday the afternoon in 1974 when she purchased the outfit, and is surprised by the recollection, the moment illuminated suddenly in her mind as if by a column of light pouring down, cutting through the fogbank of the long slumber. Once she's got the outfit on, it takes forever to address her hair, and to apply her lipstick, and then—there are scant minutes left now—to select accompanying jewelry.
She despairs over this last choosing—I should have worn black, she thinks—but finally finds a wooden bead necklace that Chet had gotten for her when he went to Africa. There's a conversation starter, she thinks, donning it like an amulet. And though it clashes horribly, she just barely has time to slip on a silver charm bracelet that used to be Norma's. She says a quick little prayer, her first in maybe sixty or seventy years, just as the knock comes at the door, the sound striking adrenaline through her heart as would the report of a rifle.
Breathe, she tells herself, as she once used to remind herself before going out onstage those first few times, breathe. Amazingly, the shuddering stops, and to anyone who would behold her, she appears to be in perfect control. She glides with her walker through the darkened living room to the front door and opens it, projecting as she does so her most confident and radiant smile, and is surprised and confused to see a small boy, no older than ten or twelve, standing before her, his button-up shirt yoked with sweat as if from a long walk in the sun, and a heavy video camera case slung over one shoulder, and gripping a sturdy tripod.
With a strange mix of shyness and confidence, he reaches out his hand to introduce himself. "Jefferson Eads," he says.
So diminished are Maxine's social skills—as isolated as a detainee—that she gasps, not understanding anything. She looks beyond the boy's outstretched hand, searches the streets for the parked car where surely his mother or father, the real filmmaker, remains.
Tact has fled her; it departed a long time ago, and she's had no real reason—or any opportunity—to bring it back. She's still ignoring the boy's hand, but is looking down on him now like a hawk, mad enough to spit. The boy, who has no idea yet what he has done to summon such outrage, takes a step back, but a warrior for his cause, obsessed as perhaps only a boy of twelve can be, keeps the camera rolling, trains the blinking red eye on her, looking up at her angry, crooked, crippled advance, even as he himself wobbles in taking that step backwards down the steps.
He recovers, plants himself, squares up, and keeps shooting. He makes sure his pale hand, still outstretched, is in the forefront of the frame, and though he is connecting the dots now, understanding that he has inserted himself into something over which he has no control—he beholds the reality now before him—he also drops down simultaneously into a lower world, one where he is seeing different possibilities, different angles of attack and exploration. He is imagining himself as different characters in the narrative that he and he alone has kindled.
Is it manipulative for him to take what he's been given—her anger—and then try to adapt and make something of it—to seek to mollify it, or to show how hard it is to manage it? Absolutely. Already, he is a master of his talent.
"Please don't hurt me," he cries in his child's voice. "I only want to make a movie."
"I'm not going to hurt you, child," the elegantly dressed old woman says, pausing at the top of the steps: the edge of her kingdom. "I'm just looking for your parents. You can't make a movie by yourself, child," she says, but less angrily now—reassessing, already, the situation before her, the hand she has been dealt. "What could you possibly know about the silver screen?"
He watches her curiously, calmly, still filming. He hears and understands what those words mean to her, the silver screen, and knows immediately, instinctively, that herewith and henceforth, whenever he needs a little something extra from her—more anecdote, more despair, more yearning, more anything—that whenever she is down and out and can travel no further, all he will need to do is speak those three words and she will rise and push on, will follow those three words to the ends of the earth.
He pauses, situated again between two worlds. He can tell her one thing, not directly the truth, and elicit a certain response for his project, or he can tell her another thing, more nakedly the truth—that his passion is for documentaries, not drama—and he will get a different response, one that may be not as dramatic.
He wants a little drama.
He casts the words back out to her cautiously, in the manner in which fishermen who, trawling from a small boat, might toss a few flakes of dry oatmeal onto the surface, where minnows come nibble, which would in turn attract larger fish below.
"I view my project as a precursor to the silver screen," he says, and he sees that his instincts are precise and correct—that at the utterance of that phrase, all hostility leaves her and she is filled instead with a surge of gentle hope, becoming as stilled as might a previously agitated bird of prey that is hooded by the falconer, or a scrabbling lizard that is flipped over on its back so that its belly can be scratched. Jefferson is a collector and quantifier of things—lizards, turtles, snakes, stamps, old coins, anything. Different, in this regard, and more intense than most, living in the shadows at the edge of genius, or even all the way over into that territory, preferring animals to people—and it is from behind the lens of the camera, the other side of the camera, that he can best understand and interact with people.
She's not the same person now, and he's curious, in a scientific way, to measure how long the spoken phrase will keep her calmed. He imagines trying to show this in his documentary, maybe with a tiny stopwatch icon, the silver screen watch, in the lower left-hand corner of the screen; and every time the phrase is spoken, the ticking clock, with its sweep-s
econd hand, can be reset. Maybe. There are so many possibilities. This is always the most exciting part of any of his ventures, any of his hobbies—the full enthusiasm of the bold beginning, when anything is possible, and his heart—his emotions—feel the equivalent of the subject.
That will fade later—the joy will seep away—and he will return to the cold familiar comfort of the chillingly technical. But here at the beginning of things, he can feel the sparks of passion, joy, and a fuller emotional engagement that, he's pretty sure, is like that of most other people's, and probably superior to theirs. A burning is what it feels like, barely able to be controlled, not even by a mind as powerful as his. Unable to be controlled, actually, which for him is a terrifying consideration, and one that requires great courage.
"Well, come on in I guess," the well-dressed dragon lady says, and turns and shuffles back into the darkness of her lair, withdrawing from the bright throw of afternoon light, which Jefferson understands intuitively is her enemy, capable of beating her down and scalding her. Whatever power she has left is concentrated in the last darkness, the seed of her isolation, and with courage and verve he follows her into her house, with the camera rolling.
Maxine thinks she has guile, believes that because she is possessed of a certain power and intelligence and hunger, she's able to control and manage all elements into successful schemes and manipulations at any level, whether grand or minute. The opposite is true, however; living alone has stripped her of all façade, and she is as transparent as the beat of an open heart before the surgeon. She has it in her mind, for instance, to be gay and charming before Jefferson's camera, and to always present to him only that which she wants him to see—but after giving him a brief little self-conscious tour around the downstairs, she is so excited to have company that she forgets about his camera, comes already to view it as simply an extension of who he is, in the way that the walker is an extension of her.