by Minick, Jim;
When I did the toilet flush for Will, he busted up laughing so much we both about choked.
He still feeds me nuts, strokes my beak, coos in that sweet voice. It’s hard to give up your first love.
Then Ada will usually come out, and if I’m in a good mood, I might do my new trick for her, just to please Will.
Which gets me thinking—what do we owe for this life? How are we beholden to air? To earth? To the sun? To the dew on our wingtips? And how are we bound to each other? What do I owe Ada for healing me, to Will for saving me? Even the dead. How am I beholden to Loot and our young killed by that storm? What holds us to them, to each other? I wish I knew.
One other thing: I was wrong about what I said earlier—words are not all lies. Hank and his twangy lyrics showed me that. I just wish you people using these precious little stones would tell the damn truth more. Ada seems to. And yeah, I’ve come to see that in her. Hell, you might even say I respect her.
Sometimes, anyway.
By god of all oysters, I just wish she’d wear that other pearl.
Acknowledgments
I worked on this book, off and on, for over fifteen years, which means, among several things, that as Cicero notes, I’m “beholden” to many people for their help. To all of these kind people, my gratitude. To anyone I’ve missed, my apologies. And obviously, any errors in this book are my own.
Much of the metaphorical underpinning of this novel comes from the following Rumi poem. In addition, I used the idea of the lines set in boldface below within the text of my novel.
The Question
by Rumi
God’s presence is there in front of me, a fire on the left,
a lovely stream on the right.
One group walks toward the fire, into the fire, another
toward the sweet flowing water.
No one knows which are blessed and which not.
Whoever walks into the fire appears suddenly in the stream.
A head goes under the water surface, that head
pokes out of the fire.
Most people guard against going into the fire,
and so end up in it.
Those who love the water of pleasure and make it their devotion
are cheated by this reversal.
The trickery goes further.
The voice of the fire tells the truth saying, I am not fire.
I am fountainhead. Come into me and don’t mind the sparks.
If you are a friend of God, fire is your water.
You should wish to have a hundred thousand sets of mothwings,
so you could burn them away, one set a night.
The moth sees light and goes into fire. You should see fire
and go toward the light. Fire is what of God is world-consuming.
Water, world-protecting.
Somehow each gives the appearance of the other. To these eyes
you have now, what looks like water
burns. What looks like fire
is a great relief to be inside.
From The Essential Rumi, translations by Coleman Barks, 2004
Several writers, teachers, and communities have shaped me and this work. This list includes
—Darnell Arnoult, with her steadfast faith in this project (and in prompts). This also includes fellow students in Darnell’s workshops who commented on early drafts, particularly Jane Sasser, Laurel Ferejohn, Carole Stice, Connie Green, Sue Dunlap, Connie Foster, Wes Sims, Diane McPhail, Joyce McDonald, Annelle Neel, Luke Kirk, Greg Screws, and Sue and Harry Orr.
—The Southern Appalachian Writers Cooperative, particularly Dana Wildsmith, who graciously shared her own burn story with me.
—The University of North Carolina Greensboro MFA program. Though no one at UNCG read this manuscript, these fine teachers and fellow students definitely shaped it.
—The Appalachian Writers Workshop at Hindman, Kentucky, where we’ve gathered at the Forks of Troublesome over many years and where I’ve studied with many teachers and friends. These include Joyce Dyer, Pam Duncan, Ann Pancake, Silas House, Michael Curtis, Sharyn McCrumb, George Singleton, Gurney Norman, Sandy Ballard, Karen McElmurray, Carrie Mullins, Tia Jensen, Elizabeth Glass, Amy Clark, Wesley Browne, Robert Gipe, and many others, all under the leadership of Mike Mullins, Jeanne Marie Hibberd, and now, Brent Hutchison.
My agent, Paige Wheeler, provided valuable comments, as did Pam Hansen. At the Tinker Mountain Writers’ Workshop, I had the pleasure of working with Fred Leebron and several excellent fellow students. At Converse College, I had several helpful conversations about titles with Leslie Pietrzyk. Michael Chitwood created the image of a crow call resembling a pistol firing—thanks to him for such fine poetry.
At Ohio University Press, Gillian Berchowitz is a gem. Thanks to her and all of the press staff, particularly Samara Rafert, Nancy Basmajian, Sally Welch, Beth Pratt, Jeff Kallet, Sebastian Biot, and copyeditor Sally Bennett Boyington.
Friends and colleagues at Radford University offered support, particularly Rosemary Guruswamy, Grace Toney Edwards, Parks Lanier, Bethley Giles, Bud Bennett, Rick Van Noy, Ricky Cox, Tim Poland, Matthew Dunleavy, and Theresa Burriss.
On questions regarding medical issues, I have Dr. Jim Freeman and Dr. Connor McBryde to thank for sharing their expertise, and Karrie McBryde for glass-blowing beauty and friendship. For his treatment of my own burns and busted elbow so long ago, I want to honor Dr. Robert D. Rector (1924–2003).
Regarding birds, particularly ravens, William and Joyce Roberts generously spent a day answering questions about birds (including Lyle) and their work treating injured ones. (RIP, William.) Bob Sheehy and Kate Brennan spent an evening sharing stories of running with birds and letting me hold Buttercup, the vulture. Also, Allen Boyton, Scott Ricketts-Jackson, and Stan Bentley offered photographs, stories, and good will, as did the New River Bird Club, particularly Jerry Via, Bill Akers, Doug Pfeiffer, and Clyde Kessler, who kindly let me use his whippoorwill story.
Bird books I read while writing this include Esther Woolfson’s Corvus: A Life with Birds; In the Company of Crows and Ravens, by John M. Marzluff and Tony Angell; Ravens in Winter and Mind of the Raven, both by Bernd Heinrich; Ernest Thomas Seton’s Wild Animals I Have Known; Gail Robinson’s Raven the Trickster, and Jeff Danny Marion’s Hello, Crow.
Other books that helped me capture the 1950s: Harry Truman’s Excellent Adventure, by Matthew Algeo; The Food of a Younger Land, by Mark Kurlansky; and All I Have to Do Is Dream: The Boudleaux and Felice Bryant Story, by Lee Wilson.
Many experts and books helped me understand powwowing and its long history. These include Powwowing among the Pennsylvania Dutch, by David Kriebel; Harry Crews’s memoir, A Childhood: The Biography of a Place; The Long Lost Friend, by John George Hohman; Folk Medicine in Southern Appalachia, by Anthony Cavender; Signs, Cures and Witchery: Appalachian Cosmology and Belief, by Gerald Milnes; Don Yoder’s many articles, including “Hohman and Romanus: Origins and Diffusion of the Pennsylvania German Powwow Manual,” in American Folk Medicine, edited by Wayland Hand; Bruce Teeple; and the folk healer Patricia Jacobs. Also, John Richards, scholar and healer, RIP. Thanks to Jane Ruppert Dutton and Alan Dutton for being such kind cousins over these many years, and to Michael Emery and Timothy Essig, and the Landis Valley Museum for their work in preserving Pennsylvania Dutch heritage.
Thanks to the editors of works where portions of this novel first appeared: Draft Horse Literary Magazine, Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel, and Motif 3: All the Livelong Day.
For many stories about the Blue Mountain Plaza and working at Howard Johnson’s, and for years of sneaking across the pike for ice cream, thanks to Joe Hoover and his wife, Christine.
Paul Dowdey answered questions about fire and fire trucks, and Carl and Jerry Dowdey supported this project with insight and kindness. We miss you, Jerry.
Much of this novel is based on family stories shared over the years, so I’d like to thank Ida and Brice Minick, Sarah and Arthur Minick, Lo
uise Hoover, Faye Hensel, Sarah Jane Hensel, Sophia Hensel Nelson, Alice Hensel, Alice and Richard Meloy, Harry Minick, Bill and Becky Minick, Brenda Minick (and her HoJo rock), Jill Minick O’Dell, Donald Minick, Michelle Weaver, Annette Evans, Karen Mettling, Kathryn Minick, and my parents, Glenn and Susan Minick, who sat through countless “interviews” about pediddles and winks and tiny scoops of ice cream that yielded so much.
Lastly, all my love and gratitude to Sarah, reader of so many words and tender of so many fires, including my own.