Maybelle looked up green marble columns running toward a high gold ceiling. The movie palace cool as an icebox, its lobby upholstered wall-to-wall with blood-purple carpet. A man wearing a dark suit led her into the auditorium where rows upon rows of empty seats faced a stage. Two more suited men and a woman smoking a cigarette sat at a folding table down front. They asked Maybelle her name then told her to climb up onstage. Yet another dour man came out of the wings and handed her a sheet of typewritten paper. One of the men raised his hand so she’d begin. Maybelle glanced at the page and cleared her throat.
After she finished reading she was led backstage to a dressing room. It had no ceiling, and she could see outlines of ropes and cables up yonder in the darkness. A vase of pink camellias stood on the table next to a sweating water pitcher. Maybelle poured a glass and nervously drank. After a while the man who’d motioned her offstage and the woman with the cigarette entered the dressing room. Up close they were both pale-skinned. Voices sounded like leaky tires. The woman was skinny as a beanpole and the man had an oily mustache which he couldn’t quit worrying with his fingertips.
“You were wonderful,” he said. “And you never acted before?”
“No,” Maybelle told him, “I ain’t.”
The woman guffawed. “Ain’t.” She poured a glass of water then took a medicine dropper from between her breasts. She squeezed a few drops of a caramel-colored liquid into the glass then stirred with her finger and sipped.
The man sat down on the love seat and patted for Maybelle to join him. He told her again how wonderful she’d been. At this point Maybelle couldn’t even remember the words she’d read for them. The man said he just adored the shape of Maybelle’s face. He made his hands into a square and framed her blond head. Wasn’t it something else her being so tall, he said, and not the least bit awkward over it? You didn’t see that very often. The woman giggled and rolled her eyes. She drank and did her worst pretending she wasn’t in the room, especially when the man, scratching his mustache, asked Maybelle to take off her dress.
“Keep on your undergarments for now if you wish,” he said. “We need a better glimpse at your figure though. Can you give us that?”
Men in Bankhead had never made bones over what they thought about Maybelle Chambliss and her looks. Bankhead wasn’t the kind of place where a man, especially a coal miner, would feign purity—even over a preacher’s daughter. She’d had boyfriends, gone what they used to call courting, which often amounted to sitting on the weedy riverbank while a farmer or a miner, or the son of one, worked up guts enough to kiss her on the mouth then try for more. The desires of men, of man, were one thing her folks’ religion did not seem to cover. Her folks acted like no such desire existed in the world. But Maybelle knew better. She heard her daddy late at night, saw desire’s toll writ on her momma in blue bite marks and yellow-green bruises, in two hollowed-out eyes sinking deeper and deeper into a prematurely wrinkled face framed by broombristle gray hair.
“Somebody else will if you won’t,” the man said.
Maybelle grabbed the glass of water off the table and slammed it upside his head. She felt the glass break, cut her hand. The woman hollered and ran out of the dressing room. The man was folded over and pawing his bleeding face. Maybelle took off too, finding her way through the bowels of the movie palace and out a back exit into the day’s last blinding light falling slant between the cavernous downtown buildings.
Now, on The Seven, a much softer light filtered through the treebranches and gathered on the surface of the spring. Maybelle splashed away the old woman she saw there. She sat down on a flipped-over boat her boys Ren and Luth had abandoned years ago. The hull made a noise like a drum, bending under her weight. She pinched her stomach and said, “Hey you fat hog you.” Laughed out loud then took off her tennis shoes and dipped her feet in the cool water. She hollered for Crusoe. She’d been having trouble seeing the dirt boy. She tried hiding this, especially from Sister. A grandmomma had to be magic. A mother perfect. She had not been, she thought, enough of either. Though it was never that simple. She could have told Tammy about her experience in Birmingham. She could tell her yet. Lately Maybelle sensed in her daughter a great uhappiness that only terrible acts might relieve.
After wading, Maybelle put on her tennis shoes and walked uphill. Geronimo appeared in the woods. “Come here you old devil,” she said to him. The cat flicked his tail and raced on ahead. Another rifleshot cracked the stillness. Maybelle moved like something was after her, so fast she like to of tripped over the cooling machine when she came to it.
She brushed off fallen leaves then pulled till roots attached to the underside of the machine snapped loose. Most of the red paint had rusted or flaked off in the thirty-however-many-years since Hugh Treeborne toted the machine out here and left it. Time came back to Maybelle so she could feel the cool air blowing on their naked bodies and smell the sweet decay of the corpses Hugh’d moved out of the path of the water. She tumped the machine over on its side. Far too heavy to tote. Geronimo brushed against her leg. She looked uphill. Pasture couldn’t be more than a hundred yards off. Maybe, she thought, I’ll get the machine there then Lee can help with his truck. She’d use the bluffline as her guide.
She rocked the machine forward on its corner, strained and pushed. Wom. She sat down and rested. The cat walked across her lap. Two more rifleshots came close together. A shadow moved among the underbrush. “Boy?” Maybelle said. “That you?” All three kids were pestering her about her eyes. They’d even taken away the keys to the vehicle she bought from Big Connie Ward after she retired from the post office. Retired, foot. Eyes, foot. To hell with any of it! Hugh was the same way over doctors and only relented to visit one when he coughed up blood. If you could see Hugh’s innards, Doc Barfield had said, it would look like his lungs and stomach had grown wings upon wings just waiting to open up and fly. What a thing to say! Maybelle thought. She pushed the machine again. Her footing slipped and the machine rocked backward. She caught her balance and it. She wasn’t going to let it be lost. Not this one, not this time. She moved the machine another foot or so. Sounded like water was still in the tank. She tried to figure out how to drain it, thinking to make the machine lighter, but could not.
She braced the machine with her back as sunlight broke the understory, casting the woods white as Spanish gold. The cotton dress she wore stuck to her thighs and sweat rolled down her ankles into her tennis shoes. She kicked them off then got up and pushed again. The machine moved but a hair. The woods stretched on and on, up up up, like they ended in heaven. Heaven, foot, she thought. She looked around and couldn’t make out the bluffline anymore. Where could it of just gone? The cat too. Both vanished. A jaybird shot past. Maybelle fanned the back of her dress then rocked the machine forward. Wom. The jay shot past the other direction, a beautiful blue streak. On she pushed. More woods, all woods. She braced against the machine and tried catching her breath. The groundcover began slipping out from under her. The machine shifted, smashing her toes. Where am I? This never happened. Not to her. Not to me here.
Lie.
Lie lie lie you awful old woman.
All you ever do.
Maybelle heaved herself into the machine again and, doing so, lost her balance and fell. The machine rolled backward and pinned her against the ground.
She could feel the metal cutting into her stomach. A shard of sky showed through the treetops, like an entryway to somewhere she would not name. She tried to push the machine off, but it wouldn’t budge. Well foot, she thought. The treebranches swayed, teasing her onward from where she’d fallen. She smiled as eternity revealed itself in all its terrible certainty. She hoped Hugh’d seen it coming too. How to end is always a concern. She coughed and nearly did not catch her breath. A rifleshot broke the air once more. Lee Malone. Lee Lee Lee … He was near to her. So many squirrels were running through the treebranches it sounded like a wave turning over. Green acorns fell, drumming the machine, stinging her forehead and
arms, rustling through the groundcover. A dog barked. Maybelle cackled, coughed. The dog barked again, farther away this time, chasing them squirrels, I reckon. Maybelle could not feel her legs or feet anymore. After all these years here she lay.
Acknowledgments
There is in fact an Elberta, Alabama, but the setting of this book is a town and a landscape of my own creation.
I owe much to the work of many writers who came before me, among them: Rick Bragg, Larry Brown, Gladys Chambless, William Faulkner, William Gay, Barry Hannah, Zora Neale Hurston, Edward P. Jones, Rodney Jones, Harper Lee, Gabriel García Márquez, Carson McCullers, Lewis Nordan, Flannery O’Connor, Charles Portis, Jessica Sampley, Brad Watson and Katherine Tucker Windham.
I’d like to thank all the folks at Picador who had a hand in bringing this book into the world. Especially Elizabeth Bruce, who so deftly inhabited the voices in these pages and, in her editing, strengthened my vision in ways that both startled and thrilled me.
Thank you to Amelia Atlas at ICM for advocating for this book to exist on its own terms. I couldn’t have asked for a better agent beside me throughout the publication process.
Thank you to every teacher who encouraged me to write. Especially Marcia Adkins at Bevill State Community College, Rick Bragg and Bill Keller at The University of Alabama, Teressa Andrews at Meek High School, and Elizabeth Miller at Farmstead Elementary School, who, after I’d sped through my first-grade classwork, would sit me down at a table and charge me with making up stories for her.
The University of Wyoming’s Creative Writing MFA program gave me a vocabulary and a framework for grappling with the work writers must do. Most importantly, the program allowed me the luxury of time to write in one of the most gorgeous places on this earth. Moving to Laramie was the best decision I ever made; I wouldn’t be the man or the writer I am today without those years spent on the high prairie. Thank you to all UW folks who read my work and let me read theirs. Especially Tim Raymond, who graciously read a draft of this book and encouraged me during a time when I needed it.
I’d also like to thank The Jentel Artist Residency Program in Banner, Wyoming, for its support and the time to work on an early draft of this book with beautiful views of the Bighorn Mountains.
Thank you to Jason Burge for being a Southern lifeline out West. Those weekends spent cooking, watching college football, hunting, drinking, and listening to you talk about books had a profound impact on my work and will continue to for as long as I write.
Dan Freije for countless hours of unmatched conversation. Your loyal friendship has been a balm during the ups and downs of writing this book.
Alyson Hagy for friendship, challenging me to always consider why I write, advising me to get a dog, and treating me like a peer when I could claim but a handful of unfinished stories to my name.
Brad Watson for being a friend, a mentor, and an exacting writer. Every writer needs a place to claw and scratch his way toward, even though he’ll never get there. Brad, your work is that place for me. Thank you for your unflagging support.
Joy Williams for tough feedback, the books you have introduced me to, and for so thoroughly appreciating my karaoke performance in Portland, Oregon, that one summer.
To all my Wyoming friends—Go Pokes!
Thank you to Lee Bains III for reading more drafts of this book than anybody else. Lee, you continue to show me what it means to be an artist and a man. Your music keeps me going, and I’m thankful every day that we stumbled our way into each other’s lives.
Nathan Barfield for believing in me when there was not a lick of credible evidence to support doing so. Thank you, Nate, for teaching me what it’s like to have a brother.
Blaine Duncan for being a true friend and encouraging my work early on. I’ll always hold dear our time spent in Tuscaloosa.
Philip Williams for friendship that truly feels free from judgment and filled with love. Thank you for every last one of those days at Lewis-Smith Lake.
To all my Alabama friends, especially Bo Hicks, Kelly Duncan, Meghan Holmes, Matt Patton, D.J. Saldana, Jenny Sanders, Aaron Suttles and T.D. Wood—Roll Tide!
I am blessed to have grown up in a big family. Thank you to all my kin. Especially Jimmie Nell, Naint, Aunt Bill and Aunt Jo. Love y’all.
Thank you to Ark, Galina and Mark Zhorov for the warmth and love and the food and drinks you’ve shared, which has made it much easier for me to live far from home.
Margaret Louise Johnson for showing me how to age with humor and honesty. Your appreciation for classic country music and Southern cooking helped me figure out who I am. Thank you, Granny, for the stories you told me these last several years.
Jessica Sampley for giving me a copy of Larry Brown’s Dirty Work when I turned fourteen. I have been changed ever since. Jec, you expanded my worldview in innumerable ways. I’ll never be able to repay you, but I can and do thank you for it.
Celia Sampley for all you’ve passed down through our family. Because of you I love nature and Elvis Presley and storytelling and laughing and animals and gospel music and talking to folks. This book wouldn’t exist without all your words, MawMaw, and all those miles we tromped together through forest and field.
Savannah Johnson for being my best friend and a sibling I can aspire to be like. I don’t know what I’d do without you on this earth, Sister.
Debra and Ronnie Johnson for modeling hard work and humility. Thank y’all, Mom and Dad, for the privilege to write books. I’m sure it’s been scary watching your oldest child pursue something as uncertain as this career. Y’all never let on though. That trust and belief has been an invaluable gift for me—one of too many to count.
Hugo for the unconditional love only a dog can give. Hugo, you deserve a cowriter credit for all those hours spent at my feet, and all those long walks you took me on that cleared my mind and renewed my spirit for the work ahead.
Irina Zhorov for believing me when I said I was going to publish a novel. More so, thank you for challenging me to try new things, to think differently about what I read and write and say and believe. For taking me places I never imagined setting foot. For never letting me off easy. For enduring love and unyielding support. Without you, Irina, this book could not have been written.
Last, I want to acknowledge the land I am sprung from, all the folks who inhabited it in the past, and those who will inherit it in the future. May this book amplify the voices of that place and its people for as long as stories are told.
About the Author
CALEB JOHNSON is a writer who grew up in the rural community of Arley, Alabama. He graduated from the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa and earned an MFA from the University of Wyoming. Johnson has worked as a small-town newspaper reporter, an early morning janitor, and a whole-animal butcher, among many other jobs. Currently, he lives with his partner, Irina, and their dog, Hugo, in Philadelphia, where he teaches while working on his next novel. You can sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Epigraphs
Stories We Tell: Today
Days Her Missing: 1958
The Peach Pit: 1958
Peach Days: 1958
Thicker than Blood: 1958
What Mine Eye Hath Seen: 1958
In the Beginning: 1929
Stories We Tell: Today
Seven Hundred Acres: 1958
The Artist at Work: 1929
To Dirt She Returneth: 1958
Signs to Show the Way: 1958
He Was, You Know, Thataway: 1929
This
is How She Survived: 1958
Here’s What Didn’t Make the Paper: 1958
Stories We Tell: Today
His Masterpiece: 1929–1930
Bring Her Back to Elberta: 1958
The Last Last Conquistador: 1958
She Could of Done Worse: 1958
Till Death Do They Part: 1930
The Hole in Lee Malone’s Guitar: 1958
Stories We Tell: Today
In the Eye of the Looker: 1958
This Didn’t Make the Paper Either: 1958
Blood’s All You Got Left: 1959
Stories We Tell: Today
Elberta Dawn: 1958
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
TREEBORNE. Copyright © 2018 by Caleb Johnson. All rights reserved. For information, address Picador, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
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Picador® is a U.S. registered trademark and is used by Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC, under license from Pan Books Limited.
For book club information, please visit facebook.com/picadorbookclub or email [email protected].
Cover design by LeeAnn Falciani
Cover images: illustration of tree branch © Anastasia Lembrik/Shutterstock.com; old paper © Pinghung Chen/Eyeem/Getty Images
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Names: Johnson, Caleb (Caleb Rich), author.
Title: Treeborne: a novel / Caleb Johnson.
Description: First edition. | New York: Picador, 2018.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017060104 | ISBN 9781250169082 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781250169099 (ebook)
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