Fathoms (Collected Writings)

by Jack Cady

  “Nancy has such a pretty name,” Lona-Anne-Marie ponders, sometimes to Nancy. “A body has to wonder what went wrong.”

  Across from Nancy’s sits the ramshackle house of Jim and Lois, although Jim now lives at Odd Fellows Cemetery; he’s dead these three years. Winter, summer, every week, Lois carries flowers to his grave. The ramshackle is crowded with junk on three floors. Jim collected stuff. Beside Nancy’s house is the smallest house in the neighborhood, which is Lona-Anne-Marie’s, and beside that, a vacant lot where a poetic lady from the apartments in years past strowed some seed. The lot is all grass and weeds and the lady’s poppies, purple and red and orange and white.

  Em’s house sits across from Lona-Anne-Marie. Beside Em sits the nice little place with Pete and Mona. They’re retired. Then comes two more vacant lots. Kingdom Hall comes at the end of the street. Beyond the Hall’s parking lot there is nothing but trees, and the private cemetery; and, when the wind is wrong, the mill’s smell.

  “Em is learning something about graves,” Lona-Anne-Marie explains, sometimes to Em. Em visits her when he’s not working. “Em is learning that between the living and the dead there ain’t no difference.” Lona-Anne-Marie chuckles, like she was the only snapdragon in a bed of asparagus. We figure Lona-Anne-Marie can be so sure because she has eternity locked. She likes patched blue housedresses, red sweaters, the coming rebirth of the world, and garage sales. She likes children from the apartments, and she likes the overweight and worried mothers who come looking for kids. Lona-Anne-Marie’s hair is whiter than Em’s dog. That’s white.

  “Are we old and wise,” Pete says, “or only old?”

  “Ask me stuff like that, I’m gonna Witness.” For Lona-AnneMarie wisdom belongs somewhere in the heavens. It may descend to earth on Sunday mornings.

  Through the neighborhood conversation flows. What’s said to Em is later heard by Pete. Lois talks to Lona-Anne-Marie, then Nancy hears. Lona-Anne-Marie tells Nancy to stop acting mulish. About that, Mona hears. We don’t talk behind the others’ backs. Talk circulates like a family.

  When his first dog died Em supposed himself in many ways a fool. Nancy agreed. Lona-Anne-Marie said things would mend. Pete was sympathetic. Mona worried. Lois is youngest, being fiftyeight. She baked pies.

  It was not a dog that should have been in business. He was happy-go-sloppy, a dog that rode in Em’s old truck. Em peddles. He sells and trades: chainsaw parts and magazines. Rope and tack and tools and books and notions. The truck sags with wants and needs and used up dreams. It carries useful stuff and other people’s junk. Before Jim died, a lot of trading went on between Jim and Em.

  That dog, and Em, and truck made quite a picture. The truck is more-or-less a Ford, but improved. Used to be a milk truck painted green. Funny color for a milk truck. Em is skinny and hawk-nosed, frowzy like the truck. He wears work clothes. The dog was shiny white, a curly tail. They held conversations, people heard. Em never even sings in church, but in that truck he sang a monotone. The dog would whine and woof. Em is modest. He never bragged except about the dog. He claimed he traded out a five-buck Chevy carb. “Best five-dollar dog I ever owned,” he’d say, and he was lying.

  It was the only dog he’d ever owned. Like a fool, he guessed it to live forever. Inexperience can hurt.

  “How can people live when they lose children,” Em asked Lona-Anne-Marie. “Because this was just my dog and I can’t stand it.”

  “Depends on who does the losing,” Lona-Anne-Marie told him. “Creation’s perfect, people ain’t.”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  “Let’s hope you never do,” Lona-Anne-Marie told him. “I never met a man so like a child.”

  After burying the dog beneath an apple tree, Em took up playing pool. He hung around the bars.

  “He’ll bring a floozy home. Expect that next.” Nancy is ironhaired and skinny, but chesty. Claims nobody sees her nicest parts. This shocks Mona, tickles Lois. Lois kind of slid while Jim was dying. Got overweight. A florid smile with painful eyes. She drinks a little. Mona dyes her long hair brown. It looks nice. Tiny women don’t much show their age.

  “It’s like he’s still around,” Em said to Lona-Anne-Marie. “Like he don’t want to leave . . . all in my mind, of course.”

  “Don’t count on it. You think the world’s that simple?”

  “It always was before,” Em said. “I may retire. I’ll get myself a cat and settle down. Learn to fly a rocking chair.”

  “Don’t do it,’’ Pete told Em when word got round. “It only sounds like fun.” Pete is tall and sixty-eight, skinny and baldheaded. He fished for a living. Now he fixes and refixes on his house. The way that man can go through paint. Gallons.

  Em went through a phase. Talking to his dog. With morning mist above the Kingdom Hall, Em walked the path that leads down to the graves. The dog went with him. Invisible, of course. “C’mon, mutt-dog,” Em would say, and off the two walked among the trees.

  “He wants a padded cell.” Nancy claimed that Em was going nuts.

  “He wants a woman,” Lois said.

  “And that’s the man who says he’ll get a cat? He wants another dog.” The paper comes out once a week. Mona started reading classifieds.

  “He’s got a dog,” Lona-Anne-Marie told Mona. “Tarry awhile on those puppy ads.”

  “He wants to give up pool and get to work.” Pete figured Nancy was close to being right. He figured Em’s brains were moon-scuffed. “I’ve seen ten-year-olds with better sense.”

  “I’ve lost people who I didn’t miss as much,” Em confided to Lona-Anne-Marie. “Pretending makes it better though.” Em went back to work. Each morning when he climbed into his truck, he held the door until the dog jumped in. The whole thing looked natural. Lois claimed she nearly saw the dog.

  “If that’s the way to handle grief I’m going to try,” Lois told Lona-Anne-Marie. “I’ll walk through all my rooms and talk to Jim.”

  “There goes the neighborhood,” Pete said when he was told. “This place is gonna be a loony bin.”

  “The preacher says that dogs don’t have a soul,” Em told Lona-Anne-Marie. “I think of changing churches.”

  “It’s what you get for being Methodist.”

  Lois’ health improved. She cut back on wine. She no longer carried flowers to Jim’s grave. Autumn came with autumn rains. The path behind the Kingdom Hall became a swamp. Fat blackberries of August turned to September blue and purple pulp, while mist ran rivers through the stand of trees. We fed our woodstoves, looked toward the rain; salvation. Boot and slicker weather. Folks who love the sun don’t like it here. We get a lot of wet. We get a lot of winter.

  Em still walked his dog along the path. Then Jim and Lois joined them. Three people and a dancing dog, the living and the dead.

  “It’s getting out of hand,” Pete said to Nancy.

  “Maybe so,” said Lona-Anne-Marie, “but Lois has quit drinkin’.” Lona-Anne-Marie is rarely puzzled. When resurrection’s certain, not much else is going to fool you. Still, Lona-Anne-Marie was thinking. The rebirth of the world seemed out of kilter.

  Em bought a female pup with pedigree. “Because males fight,” he said to Lois. “I want them to be friends.”

  “For what that mutt cost,” Pete said, “he could of paid the taxes on his house.”

  The rains swept in across the western range, rains bred in Russia, the Gulf of Alaska; sou’westers coming from Japan. The roof on Kingdom Hall sat glazed and black. Em turned to motherhood and so did we.

  “We’re acting silly.” Lona-Anne-Marie was gratified. “A man of sixty ain’t too old to learn.” She watched Em’s patience as he trained the pup. She boiled soup bones and watched as Em, and Jim, took walks with the two dogs.

  “She’ll get pneumonia,” Nancy said, “that’s sure. They come in cold and wet.” She searched her attic, found a blanket. She and Lois made the pup a bed.

  Pete built a doghouse. “Big enough for one,” he pointed out.
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  “I look to the redemption of the world. Not this. Right now I’ve got a mare’s nest.” Lona-Anne-Marie was always sure a resurrecting God would sweep the sky and make things new. For thirty years since her conversion she’s passed out tracts.

  “Jim don’t explain why he’s returned. Might be he can’t. And I don’t care.” Lois started working on her weight. “I used to be nice looking.”

  “He really likes her.” Em told everyone about his dogs. “It’s going to work out fine.”

  “I think Em did just right, and so does Jim.” Lois’ eyes were nowhere near as painful. “I know you think it’s crazy,” she told Mona.

  “I don’t know what to think. There’s something to it.” Mona started greeting Jim, when Jim and Lois took their morning walk. It like to drove Pete wild.

  “I almost, just about, can see him,” Mona said. “Maybe they’re not crazy.”

  “I don’t care much for kids. I do like dogs.” Nancy got maternal. She swore that Em was going to ruin the pup.

  “She seems to pee a lot,” Em said.

  “She’s got a baby bladder.” Nancy went downtown, and bought a book on how to train your dog.

  “How to ruin your dog,” Pete said. “They’ve got that little girl downright confused.”

  “Maybe so,” said Lona-Anne-Marie, “and maybe not. Watch where she doesn’t jump, watch where she does.”

  “There’s no predictin’ what a pup will do.” Pete watched close. The pup seemed romping with another dog. When Jim and Lois went along with Em, the pup seemed with three people. She danced in front of Jim; like he took space. She didn’t run across his space.

  “It’s mass delusion,” Pete explained. “The neighborhood is nuts, and so’s my wife. I’ve lived beside that woman forty years. I think I’ve lost my mind.”

  “Folks get lonesome,” Nancy said. “We’re old. If everybody’s happy why complain? The world don’t care for old folks anyway. We get to act as silly as we please.” Nancy didn’t give a thought for Jim. She only walked along to bother Pete.

  ═

  On Sunday mornings at the Kingdom Hall folks come and go like businessmen at lunch. They chomp an hour’s message, then leave. Used to be, when church was over folks would stand around. They’d talk and gas and gossip, swap the news. Girls would flirt with boys, and boys would blush. There was no helter skelter.

  On Sunday mornings Lona-Anne-Marie can almost always walk to Kingdom Hall. Unless the weather’s awful, or unless her rheumatism bends her. On such days, Em or Pete walks with her. They don’t stay. They pick her up when services are done.

  One day she walked with Jim. People took no notice. Except the people in the neighborhood. Lona-Anne-Marie leaned on Jim’s arm. Her white hair puffed beneath a mended scarf. Her red coat was a thrift store hand-me-down.

  “That tears it,” Pete said. “I must be missin’ something.”

  “My dog has caused the resurrection of the world.” Em spoke to Lois. “Don’t tell nobody yet. He died and didn’t want to leave. I take no credit.”

  Used to be that things weren’t lonesome. When church let out the old folks stood around, and counted blessings. They had families, they had friends. They knew about each other back to Adam. Some were even feuding.

  “It don’t pay to fret about the past. I’ve nary chick nor child to plague me. I think about the future.” Lona-Anne-Marie was optimistic. If resurrection’s certain, folks can plan. “It’s just,” said Lona-Anne-Marie, “redemption should be fancy. I thought the skies would open.”

  The pup grew winter fur. Along the path behind the Kingdom Hall, and on the bluff where the old chimney rose, someone cut young trees. We heard the axe-chunks carried by the wind. Winter brings us freezing rain. Our world is covered with transparent glaze.

  “John’s resurrected,” Em explained. “His whole family. Those five graves behind the Kingdom Hall. John’s putting up a cabin. John Jr.’s helping; nice young man. Esther’s just a little girl, and Tim is ten. Sarah can’t be more than thirty-five. Folks married younger eighty years ago.” Em told all this to Pete and Jim while rummaging his truck. “I’ve got some stuff they’re going to need. Cooking pots and such. They gotta have a stove.” He turned to Jim. “I’ll bet you’ve got a couple in your shed.”

  “I must be gettin’ old,” Pete said, “I’m tired. This disbelieving wears a fella down.” The sound of axe-chunks carried from the bluff. “It won’t be up to code,” Pete said. “There’s no permit. The sheriff ‘s gonna come and raise some hell.”

  “We’re past the time of sheriffs, I expect.” Jim seemed certain-sure. “Woodstoves weigh a lot. We’ll have to pack it down in parts. Bolt it back together on the site.”

  “Oh, Lord,” Pete said, “I just now heard Jim’s voice. Now everybody’s crazy.”

  Used to be, miracles abounded. Every family had at least one tale, of someone on the far side of death’s door that death tossed back. Or maybe angels cruised the neighborhoods. There was a time when faith moved mountains. Pete was old enough to recollect.

  “I’d ought to call the sheriff. Get this done.” Nancy can be mulish. The minute Pete began to talk to Jim, Nancy balked. Her iron-gray hair looked like a puff of mist as she peered from her windows. When Em and Jim and Lois and the dogs went walking down behind the Kingdom Hall, Nancy stayed at home. “I’ve been playing this just like a game. Never took it serious.”

  “Pipe dreams come from smoke. I see no smoke.” LonaAnne-Marie cleaned house. She washed her windows, polished up her stove. “I ain’t seen Pete so lively in awhile. He’s finally taking interest. It’s making Mona happy.”

  Lona-Anne-Marie washed curtains. The rebirth of the world would find her tidy. She had few words about the resurrection. “It had to happen sometime. Why not now? I’ve been predictin’ it.”

  When woodsmoke rose behind the Kingdom Hall the sheriff came. Webster Smith (“Call me Web”) is sheriff. He’s friendly when election comes around. “There’s law and folks,” he says, and what he means is comfort lies in balancing the two. Web does like comfort.

  “I’m not so young myself,” Web said to Pete. He stood beside his car and watched the trees. Dead poppies straggled in the vacant lot, while off a-ways, two playing children looked like bouncing toys.

  “Old folks imagine things. I ought to know. Try sittin’ in a car night after night. Looking out for drunks.” Web had walked the path, looked at the site. Nancy got so bothered she’d joined Pete. They’d waited side by side until Web got back. Web is not badlooking, tall and built in chunky squares.

  “What did you see?” Nancy frets at things, won’t let them go. She’s not above some flirting. Web has always been a ladies’ man.

  “A cabin built by axe. It’s some poor duffer. Riding out the winter. Don’t own a chainsaw, even.”

  “I’d just as leave this didn’t get around. I think there’s something to it.” Pete winked at Jim, who only Pete could see. From up the path behind the Kingdom Hall Em walked with his two dogs.

  “The folks at Kingdom Hall made no complaint. The land belongs to them. Come spring the guy will move along. Meanwhile, I won’t roust him.” Web had got distracted. Nancy’d pulled her shoulders back. It made her front stick out.

  “None of us has got that many years.” Web looked at Kingdom Hall like he was tired. “We mix up fact and memory. These days I spend a lot of time remembering my folks.” Web looked where Em was coming from the trees. “I heard he bought a highprice pup. Why’s he need two dogs?”

  “Sweet loving God,” said Nancy. Then she drooped her shoulders.

  The sum of it is John and Sarah stayed, together with their kids. They feared hard times. It isn’t easy, after eighty years, to make a living. They were raised with horses, not with cars; but everybody helped.

  On Sundays, going to the Kingdom Hall, folks drove past and sort of looked confused. They’d wave to Pete and Em, and Em’s two dogs, or maybe one. When spring rains came, a few of them began to wa
ve at Jim.

  “I got to guess,” said Lona-Anne-Marie, “the skies will open soon.”

  In spring the rain is constant. It walks across the mountains and the Sound. It floods our gardens and the vacant lots. Hard to work the ground, the earth gets soggy. The roof of Kingdom Hall grows moss. The moss is softly green. It burns away come summer.

  The pup grew to a dog and Em was thinking. “It’s old folks make this happen,” he told Jim. “Lona-Anne-Marie knew all along. The living and the dead are all the same. I’ll get it studied out.”

  “Faith don’t amount to squat,” Pete said to Em. “Unless you’re stuck with facts. Then there’s something to it.”

  “Maybe we all died,” said Em, “and none of us took notice.”

  In May the rains turn warm and start to thin. Our world is green. New growth tips the firs. The pines grow whitish candles. The roof of Kingdom Hall looks like a lake, reflecting trees.

  “It comes from being lonesome,” Em told Jim. “I’d guess it’s more than that, but there’s a start.”

  “It’s getting ticklish down at Kingdom Hall.” Lona-AnneMarie still went to church. “Some folks say ‘yes’, and some say ‘no’. Can’t blame ‘em much. A quiet resurrection’s real surprising.” Lona-Anne-Marie was feeling spry. When kids from the apartments came around, she gave them little parties.

  “It’s kind of cute,” said Nancy. “Folks from Kingdom Hall talk resurrection. Then it comes and they don’t see it. I guess it don’t amount to much.”

  “It’s having everything, plus lonesome.” Em told Nancy, then told Pete. “Youngsters couldn’t do it. Been listening to the preachers sixty years. It took my dog to teach me.”

  When John and Sarah took their kids to church, the congregation put its cares aside. Redemption maybe—maybe not—but here were folks who had to make a crop. The elders took a vote. They had a man come in. Tractored up the vacant lots. They bought hand tools and seed.

  “I know now how it works,” Em said to Pete. “Dead folks are all around.”

  Young folks have needs, Em claims. When they get lonesome they just chase their tails. They do those things young people have to do. Em says the resurrection always was, has always been. It just takes folks who have no wants, but feel the pain of lonesome. Em claims the skies won’t open.