Dark River Road

by Virginia Brown

  Six Oaks gleamed in the early morning light like a pearl set on green velvet. The lawns stretched out to the road and the three-rail white fence that separated Quinton property from state property. It looked like a park or a museum instead of a home. It always amazed him that some people spent their money on grass that God put down for free most places, and spent even more money on flowers that some folks thought of as weeds. Money got spent on horse manure and cow manure and sheep manure, and even bat manure. Guano, he’d heard it called. All that money spent on shit with a fancy name. He just didn’t get it.

  Dempsey sent him up to work around the side veranda of the house, a cool spot shaded by a graceful weeping willow and built out of grey fieldstone. It had a wide stone planter all around it that’d been planted with flowers, and a fountain stood in the center with a little boy peeing into a small square pool. It made him want to pee, too, after he’d listened to it a few minutes.

  Mississippi had to be the most humid place in the entire country. He hadn’t been working fifteen minutes before his tee shirt was wet clear through and sweat dripped into his eyes. It was easy work, just digging a small trench for drainage around the edge of the flowerbed bordering the stone wall, but it sure made him sweat. He stripped off his tee shirt and worked for a while, then took a break and went to get some water from the truck. He brought a jar back with him and set it on the edge of the planter.

  He wore thick leather gloves to keep from getting blisters on his palms, and work boots, and his cut-off Levi’s. Most of his pants were too short these days, and Mama said she could almost see him grow, shooting up like kudzu while she watched. He was nearly six feet now, but still too skinny. All this digging ought to put more muscle on him.

  There was probably close to two hundred feet of flowerbed to edge, and by noon, he had nearly half done. Dempsey had said they were to put pea gravel in it when it was finished, and he thought that’d be a waste of time. It’d just wash out in the next hard rain, but that’s what Mr. Quinton wanted so that’s what Mr. Quinton would get.

  It got so hot after lunch that he went up on the veranda and splashed water from the little square pool onto his face and in his hair. It was cool and clear, and felt good dripping down to his chest and running all the way to his belly. He dunked his tee shirt into the water, wrung it out a bit and slung it around the back of his neck to drip some more.

  When he turned around to go back to his digging, he saw Chris’s mother standing there watching him. He knew it was her even though he’d only seen her a couple of times at church service. She looked like a china doll, with wide blue eyes that stared at him with unnerving blankness, and a pretty face so cold and still it could have been a painting. She still wore a nightgown and robe, thin stuff that draped all the way to the stone floor. He’d never seen anyone who wasn’t sick still wearing their nightclothes in the middle of the afternoon, so figured she had to be feeling bad.

  “You’re that boy,” she said suddenly, and her voice was surprisingly low and husky. “The one who always fights with my son.”

  “I don’t do that anymore.”

  “Why not?”

  It was an odd question to ask, he thought, and he hesitated before answering. If he was going to be completely truthful, he’d tell her that he’d like nothing better than to beat Chris down to a bloody pulp but he’d promised his mother he wouldn’t. That didn’t seem like the right thing to say to Chris’s mama.

  “It’s not right,” he said finally, and she stared at him a moment then laughed.

  “Not right? When did people ever do what’s right?”

  He didn’t know what to say to that so didn’t say anything, just watched her warily as she came toward him, seeming to float across the flagstones like some ghost. Despite the heat, a chill ran down his back and he shivered.

  He tried to remember what he’d heard about her, but most of it was vague, just that she had met Chris’s dad in college in California and married him out there before coming back with him to Cane Creek. No one here knew much about her, either. She kept to herself when they were here, which wasn’t often. They must have traveled the world a hundred times, they were gone so much.

  She paused only a foot away, the shadow of a smile flitting across lips that curved slightly upward. “Can you keep a secret?”

  “I . . . yeah.” He wished she’d go back in the house, wished Dempsey would show up, even wished Chris or Mr. Quinton would come out of the house. There was something eerie about her, something that made him want to be far away.

  “I can keep a secret, too. There are so many secrets in this house. So many. I know them, but I won’t tell.” She put a hand on his chest, fingers splayed on his wet skin. “I can’t tell.”

  Jesus, he thought, and took a step backward. This was something he didn’t know how to handle. She was Chris’s mother, Mrs. Quinton. And he had a feeling there was something terribly wrong with her.

  He’d never thought he’d be glad to see Chris Quinton, but when he came out from one of the French doors it was a relief to see him. He went straight to his mother with barely a glance at Chantry.

  “Mother, we’ve been looking for you. It’s time to come in and take your pills.”

  She didn’t even turn around to look at her son, but stared up at Chantry with that same feline smile, mysterious and slightly wicked. Chris put a hand on her arm and pulled her gently with him.

  Chantry didn’t say anything, just watched Chris walk her back inside the house. The door closed behind them, but he could see through the glass panes as Chris’s dad met them. Voices raised, and Chris sounded defensive while his father sounded just plain mad. He yelled at Chris so loud the windows rattled. Not so different from Rainey in a way.

  He left the veranda and finished digging the drain and helped Dempsey put pea gravel in it, and though he kept a wary eye on the house, he didn’t see Mrs. Quinton again. He thought about it all afternoon, and wondered what was the matter with her. She took pills. Maybe they made her act that way, like they’d made Rainey act all weird when he’d first hurt his back on the job and the doctors gave him pills that Mama said were too powerful.

  It was late when Dempsey dropped him off at home, after nine at night, and already dark. They hadn’t said much on the ride, both too tired to talk. He had a hundred dollars cash in his hand, and he went out back to the dog pen to take care of Shadow and hide his money before he did anything else. The dog greeted him enthusiastically, and he played with him a little bit before he cleaned up the pen and fed him.

  “Almost enough money, boy,” he said, shaking the dog by the scruff of his neck. “Then it’ll always be me and you.”

  Shadow raced around the yard as hard as he could, freed from the confines of the pen, and he watched for a couple of minutes, smiling. Maybe one day he’d be able to fence in a bigger area for him, enough room that he’d at least be able to release some of Shadow’s energy. But for now, this would have to do.

  A lot of the time he sat out here with Shadow for a while, just sitting and talking to the dog because there was no one else to talk to and Shadow knew how to listen really good. He didn’t seem to mind when Chantry said whatever was on his mind, but watched him close, and if he seemed too upset about something, licked his hand or his arm or his face, wherever he felt like licking just to take Chantry’s mind off it. It almost always worked.

  But tonight Chantry was too tired, and went inside once he got Shadow put back in his pen for the night. Mama was in the kitchen, and she looked over at him when he came in the back door.

  “I have your supper ready. Sit down and eat before you shower.”

  Mikey already sat at the table, eating some ice cream. That was a treat. Mama didn’t often waste money on ice cream. Grinning at him, Mikey said, “You look brown as a berry.”

  “You heard that from Mama.”

  “Yep. I’m gonna get brown as a berry, too, now that I’m nearly well.”

  Chantry reached out to thump him lightl
y on the side of his head. “You’ll look like a berry, all right, red as a strawberry if you stay out in the sun too much.”

  Chocolate ice cream oozed from the space where he was missing two front teeth when Mikey grinned at him again. “Maybe. And maybe I’ll look like you.”

  “We have a doctor’s appointment Tuesday so you won’t have to watch him for me,” Mama said as she set Chantry’s plate on the table in front of him. “Mrs. Burns will teach my class, and Eleanor Rowan is giving us a ride so we will not have to walk.”

  Eleanor Rowan lived in a trailer one field over on the next street and worked nights at the diner down on Main Street.

  “What’s the matter with Rainey’s truck?”

  “He said he has to use it Tuesday.” Mama’s mouth got tight like it always did when Rainey did something mean or stupid.

  Chantry looked down at his plate. He should be hungry, but he was just about too tired to eat. No meat tonight, just vegetables, fresh red tomatoes sliced up thick and some green ones battered in cornmeal and fried. Boiled potatoes and string beans weren’t his favorite, but he could eat them well enough when he was hungry. He picked at his food, thinking.

  “I saw Mrs. Quinton today,” he said, and felt Mama look at him. Since there was only one Mrs. Quinton, she knew who he meant. Miss Lucinda, old man Quinton’s wife, had died so many years ago no one even mentioned her anymore.

  “Did you speak to her?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Kinda. She . . . I didn’t know what to say to her.”

  Mama was quiet for a minute, then she said, “Laura Quinton has always been—delicate.”

  Delicate. He knew what that meant. She was crazy as a Betsy bug. They’d said old Mrs. Morton was delicate too, and then she’d walked naked down the middle of the street at high noon with only a big straw hat on her head and her dead husband’s fishing boots on her feet. After that, she’d gone down to stay in Whitfield where men in white coats could keep her from taking off all her clothes again. Or at least from walking bare-assed down the street.

  When he didn’t say anything, Mama said, “Everyone has their own burdens, Chantry.”

  He thought about that, and about the look on Chris’s face when he’d come out to get his mama back inside the house, all tight like he didn’t want Chantry to see him. He hadn’t been mean to his mother though, and that surprised Chantry a little. A lot. Chris didn’t seem like he’d ever cared about anything much except himself. And making Chantry’s life hell.

  “I guess money doesn’t buy everything,” he said after a minute, and Mama leaned back against the edge of the sink. She got a funny look on her face.

  “No,” she said, “it certainly does not.”

  Mikey, who’d finished his bowl of chocolate ice cream and looked like his face had been dipped in it, piped up, “If I had lots of money I’d give it all to Chantry for Shadow.”

  Chantry gave him a quick look. He hadn’t ever told Mikey what he planned. No one knew but Dempsey. “What do you mean?”

  Big blue eyes regarded him solemnly. “So’s you could do what you gotta do.”

  Mama smiled. “Chantry is doing very well for the dog, Mikey. He has worked hard and been able to do what is necessary. I think he has shown great initiative. If you are through with your ice cream, it is time for your bath.”

  While Mama took Mikey off for a bath, Chantry finished eating what he could and then washed up the dishes and cleaned the table so Mama wouldn’t have to do it. It was hot in the house, the old window air conditioner struggling to put out enough cool air to make it bearable. They only had one, and it was in the living room where Rainey had taken to staying most of the time sprawled out in his big recliner in front of the TV. He slept there most nights, snoring louder than the late night movies he liked to watch. Mama never tried to get him to come to bed, and he guessed she’d rather Rainey stay in the living room. He didn’t blame her.

  Somehow his mind would never let him think about Mama being with Rainey in the same way he’d been with Cathy Chandler. It just didn’t seem possible his mother would ever do that. He knew she had to have done it at least once with Rainey or Mikey wouldn’t be here, but that wasn’t something he ever wanted to think about. It was too strange.

  And even more strange, he didn’t mind knowing she’d been with his father like that. It was different. His father was a hero. A Marine who’d died for his country. They’d been in love, and it had been one of those tragic love stories men liked to write about and women liked to watch in the movies.

  Living it after the ending of the movie was something entirely different, he thought. There was no pretty music, no noble speeches or fade to the ocean waves. There was just the everyday drudgery of getting on with life.

  He was so tired he fell asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow. When he woke up, it was still dark. He didn’t know what woke him. Rainey’s TV maybe. He lay there all drowsy and hot, the air thick and sultry with heat. The air conditioner just didn’t reach into his bedroom. Even Mikey, who used to stay cold all the time, had kicked off the top sheet and lay sprawled out with his arms and legs flung wide and sweat making his face shine in the light that came through the window pane. The big box fan sitting on the floor didn’t help cool the room much.

  Chantry sat up and opened the window. It didn’t matter since no air conditioning got in here anyway. Cooler air that smelled of honeysuckle washed in, and he breathed deep. It’d be cooler if he slept outside. He thought about it but he’d have to have lots of bug spray. Mosquitoes would eat him alive. Maybe he could put the box fan in the open window to draw in cooler air. It’d go right over the top of them then.

  He got up, careful not to wake Mikey, and unplugged the box fan. The window was pretty wide so it might fit okay. When he had it wrestled up onto the wooden window sill, he shoved it back into the opening up against the screen. It hung over the lip of the window but stayed pretty steady. When he plugged it back in, the blades sucked in cool air and muffled sound.

  Pulling back the window shade that hung halfway down, he peered out, wondering what he heard. Laughter? Singing? His window looked out over the front porch, and he could see a good ways down the street toward the blacktop road. The other way was Dempsey’s house, but it was dark, no lights on, just quiet and sleeping.

  But there was some kind of light on in the Albertson’s old house. He was surprised. He didn’t know anyone lived there now, hadn’t seen anyone move in or heard anything about old man Quinton renting it out. That was weird. No cars sat out front in the yard or on the gravel road. It still looked deserted except for that light. And the voices.

  Curiosity got the better of him, and he pulled a pair of cut-offs on over his shorts and went down the hallway and out through the kitchen so he wouldn’t wake Rainey passed out in front of the TV in the living room. He went around the side of the house and avoided where the window unit dripped on the ground and made a muddy trench in the hard dirt, but kept to the shadows by the house as close as he could. Light was plainly visible in the Albertson’s old house. He decided to walk down there and investigate.

  His bare feet made no sound on the gravel road, but rocks dug into his skin so he stayed on the grassy verge as much as possible. It occurred to him that maybe Tansy and Leon were in that house. It wouldn’t surprise him that much. She had this look about her now, like she knew what was up, but they’d never talked about it. Not after that night in their secret cave when he’d backed off from her and she’d run out crying. He didn’t know why he’d done that except that it just hadn’t seemed right. It was Tansy. She was too important to risk ruining everything.

  So he didn’t know what he’d see when he crept up close to the house hidden behind a wall of bushes, and hoped if it was Tansy that Leon really loved her enough to do her right. He seemed to be crazy enough about her, but you never knew.

  It wasn’t Leon, and it wasn’t Tansy. When he rubbed grime off the cracked window pane that looked into the room where the light
was, he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. And what he was hearing.

  Reverend Hale was naked as a jaybird on top of a rickety iron bed, pumping his willy into a woman that sure wasn’t Mrs. Reverend Hale. This woman wasn’t fat but skinny, her bare legs wrapped so tight around the good reverend that it looked like she was trying to squeeze him to death. And with every stroke, Reverend Hale hollered out words from a Bible verse.

  “Dearly beloved, I beseech you, as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul. First Peter two eleven . . .”

  Another stroke that made the woman squirm and the reverend get really red in the face. He gasped a few times, opened his eyes really wide and looked up at the dusty ceiling as if for holy guidance and pumped even harder. The bedsprings squeaked almost as loud as the woman.

  “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world . . .” He pumped harder. “First John two sixteen.”

  Chantry knew he should stop watching but he couldn’t. He held onto the cracked, peeling paint of the window sill, fascinated and repelled at the same time.

  “And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever . . .” All the skin seemed pulled back so tight on the reverend’s face it made his ax blade of a nose look sharp as a crow’s beak. This time he didn’t give the chapter and verse but hollered out to God to help him, that he was coming. He sure looked like he was about to take off for heaven. Then he got real still and the woman under him turned her face toward the window so that Chantry could see her. Her eyes were shut tight, but he recognized her. It was Mrs. Tilly, the choir director of New Cane Creek Baptist Church. She had a husband and two little kids, and always got them involved in every church activity there was. Except this one, he was pretty sure of that.