The Promise of Jesse Woods

by Chris Fabry

  “Matt,” my father said with a gentleness that surprised me, “you have a good heart. And I know you want to help. But you can’t force someone to accept your love.”

  “Who said anything about love? I think she’s making a mistake. I can’t understand why you don’t see that.”

  “She’s not your responsibility, Matthew,” my mother said.

  “People make choices with their lives,” my father added. “Some are good. Some aren’t. And we all live with the fallout.”

  My mother waited to the count of ten. “Nothing good can come from this. Move on. Put the past behind. Press on toward the prize of the high calling—”

  “What is it about the past that scares you?” I said, looking from his eyes to hers and back again. “I’ve spent a dozen years leaving the past, and here it is bubbling to the surface.”

  “Let’s not go through this all again,” my mother said, shaking her head.

  Ticking like a time bomb in the corner of the room was the grandfather clock my mother had received one Christmas. She’d always dreamed of owning one. It was a status symbol that countered her poverty-stricken childhood. The three of us were frozen and it felt like that first day when we’d arrived in Dogwood, the first dinner at my grandmother’s house when I’d said I had made two friends. The air had gone out of the room when I said their names.

  My grandmother had narrowed her gaze. “Don’t hang around with that trash,” she said.

  My mother and father had stayed silent as we ate. I wanted to tell them about the dead horse and Old Man Blackwood, but the truth seemed better hidden.

  Now my mother spoke over the clock’s ticking and the memories that shouted. “Why don’t you put your things in your bedroom? You’ve driven all night. You have to be tired.” She looked at me and tried to smile. “That’s what this is about. You’re tired and you need rest.”

  “Take a shower and get some sleep,” my father said. “We can talk more later.”

  I knew a shower couldn’t wash the questions away, but I sighed and said, “It’s been a long night.”

  “I’ll get you a set of towels,” my mother said, heading for the laundry room.

  I opened the front door as the sun peeked over the edge of the hill and burned the dew. The air was fresh and crisp like October was supposed to be. I saw my gym bag in the passenger seat and went to retrieve it. As I opened the door, something inside told me not to sleep. I climbed behind the wheel and drove away, my father staring from the front window.

  JUNE 1972

  Life is invigorating when you have friends, even if you live far from civilization. I went to bed that first night to the deafening sound of chirping crickets, falling asleep almost as my head hit the pillow. A framed picture hung by the door, still there from when my father was a child. Pinocchio ran into the classroom late, and Jiminy Cricket stood on the teacher’s desk with arms folded, glaring. It was the last thing I saw before sleep.

  I awoke the next morning to sizzling bacon and my grandmother humming “Channels Only” at the end of the hall. She was in her nightgown, a long braid of hair down her back swishing from side to side. My grandmother wore clothing that made her look without shape or form. She was a head on top of a cylinder with varicose vein–laced ankles sticking out the bottom. She sang the words as she cracked the eggs into a metal bowl.

  “How I praise Thee, precious Savior,

  That Thy love laid hold of me;

  Thou hast saved and cleansed and filled me

  That I might Thy channel be.

  Channels only, blessed Master,

  But with all Thy wondrous pow’r

  Flowing thro’ us, Thou canst use us

  Ev’ry day and ev’ry hour.”

  I walked into the kitchen, the linoleum creaking, and she turned and smiled. “How’d you sleep, Matty?”

  “Like a rock.”

  “Your mama and daddy are at church. Getting ready for Sunday.”

  She told me what was planned as I ate the eggs and bacon and drank milk and orange juice and had a sweet roll. Either she was disregarding my parents’ hopes about me losing weight or they hadn’t discussed it with her.

  “Do you know what the Pirates did last night?” I said.

  “No, but the Reds won. I think they played the Mets.” She handed me the sports page of the Herald-Dispatch, a paper she referred to as the Herald-Disgrace because of their treatment of Richard Nixon. My grandmother and parents were lifelong Republicans in a state that hadn’t voted for one since Eisenhower. And Nixon was as close to a political saint as you could get in her book. She had a photo she’d clipped from a newspaper of Billy Graham and the president smiling next to each other. When Graham held a crusade at Pitt Stadium, my father had made sure to take us to hear Ethel Waters and Cliff Barrows.

  I found the results of the previous night and saw that the Reds had indeed beaten the Mets 6–3, but the Pirates had played a double header in San Diego and won the first game. The second game wasn’t listed. This would become the bane of my existence, this lack of connection with my old team. It felt unfair to be severed—even the local radio station rarely mentioned the Pirates.

  When I was finished with breakfast, I took my plate to the sink, thanked Mawmaw, gave her a hug, and turned to leave.

  She grabbed me and took my chubby cheeks in her hands. “Now, Matty, you listen. You’re making a fresh start. One of the most important things is to carefully pick your friends. Some will take you down the garden path and others will lead to good.”

  “What’s wrong with the garden path? Aren’t gardens good?”

  She thought a moment. “It’s a saying. It means, pick good friends.”

  “I will, Mawmaw.”

  My bike wasn’t in front of the house where I’d left it, and it wasn’t anywhere around the house. I thought maybe my father had put it in the shed, but I checked and it wasn’t there. Confounded, I walked down the driveway to the creek and spotted something moving in the grass beside the gravel. A turtle as big as my grandmother’s skillet moved quickly toward the water, his pointy head out. The closer I got, the bigger the stink.

  “Better not get close,” Jesse said behind me.

  I turned and there she was, her dirty-blonde hair hanging to her shoulders. She wore the same clothes as the day before and pedaled barefoot on the same bike—mine.

  “That’s a snapping turtle. He gets hold of you and he won’t let go until lightning strikes.”

  “He smells like a sewer.”

  “They’re bottom-feeders. They eat whatever’s dead. My daddy used to love to cook him up a turtle. I can’t stand them. You got a .22? We could shoot it.”

  “Why would you want to shoot it?”

  “Because a turtle is a menace. I’ve seen ducks swimming on top of the water and all of a sudden they’re gone. Snapping turtle got ’em.”

  “I thought they were bottom-feeders.”

  “Sometimes even bottom-feeders rise to the top.”

  “Let’s leave him alone,” I said.

  Behind us a voice echoed against the hills, the words to the Jackson 5’s “ABC.” Dickie rolled into the driveway with a one-two-three and a do-re-mi.

  “How’s it goin’, Dickie?” Jesse said, straight-faced.

  “Lookin’ for a breakthrough,” Dickie said with all the hope he could muster. He saw the turtle and winced. “You going to kill that thing?”

  “He don’t want us to,” Jesse said, sticking a thumb out toward me.

  Dickie stared at me like I had two heads. “Your mama and daddy will probably invite us for dinner if we do.”

  I was a bit more skeptical of my family’s response to him and Jesse, but I kept that to myself.

  “I don’t want to kill it,” I said.

  Dickie shook his head.

  “Have you heard anything about the horse?” I said. “Is it still in the field?”

  “Still there,” Jesse said. “Swolled up big as a water tank. Buzzards are at it.”<
br />
  “So Blackwood doesn’t know yet?”

  Jesse shrugged. “OMB will more than likely dig a hole with his tractor and bury it.”

  “So he won’t know what happened,” I said. “We’re in the clear?”

  “With Blackwood, you’re never in the clear,” Jesse said.

  Dickie yawned. “Come on, Jesse, let’s go over to Blake’s.”

  She nodded and they were about to take off when I said, “But that’s my bike.”

  “You can come, if you want,” Dickie said. “We won’t kill any turtles on the way since you care so much about them.”

  While I was trying to figure out how all three of us would ride to Blake’s, wherever that was, Jesse climbed off the bike and leaned it toward me. “Get on.” I threw a leg over and Jesse climbed up on the handlebars, her bottom fitting perfectly into the empty space between them.

  “Drive on!” she said, pointing a finger toward the road like I was her chauffeur.

  I had never ridden with anyone on the handlebars and I had to push the bike through the gravel to the road.

  “You want me to pedal?” Jesse said. “You can ride up here.”

  “He won’t fit,” Dickie said, and though he was right, the observation hurt.

  Once we got to the road, I gained balance and followed Dickie, leaning to one side so I could see. Jesse’s hair blew back with the hot breeze and with each pedal of the bike she shifted from side to side. The sun was up and it felt like rain, the humidity high and the air thick. June bugs buzzed past us. I was sweating before we reached the first bend in the road.

  “Watch the hole,” Jesse said. “Go around it—”

  Before I could react, we were in the middle of a rut, and when I hit the other side, she popped up on the handlebars and grabbed them to hang on. I slid to a stop.

  “You trying to kill me?” she said, turning. Dickie laughed. I could swear I saw a little smile in Jesse’s eyes.

  Blake’s was the only grocery in Dogwood in those days before the Food and Drug arrived. It was a two-story brick building with large windows in front and a glass door that jangled a bell when you walked inside. The building sat directly across from the elementary school and Jesse said she’d gotten in trouble in the first grade for crossing the road to the store.

  A cooler filled with soda pop sat outside on the covered wooden porch. Inside was frigid, humming with freezers. The room smelled of red licorice and Pine-Sol. The floor was aged hardwood with strategically placed pieces of carpet and woven baskets to carry. You could find anything you wanted at Blake’s, as long as what you wanted was something they carried. Bread and sliced ham and crackers and bologna. Macaroni and cheese and Hamburger Helper. Rice-A-Roni and PAL peanut butter. There was a hardware section with work gloves and various implements, but Jesse said everybody knew you could buy a shovel for half the price at Heck’s just up the interstate.

  A Labrador retriever lay by the front door and moved his bloodshot eyes each time it opened. He reminded me of Old Yeller, a film that had cured me of ever owning a dog. For months after seeing it I wouldn’t go near any pet for fear of contracting rabies. Old Man Blake (Dickie and Jesse called any male they considered even slightly unfriendly “old man”) stood behind the counter wearing suspenders and a bow tie. He had little hair on top, but he made good use of it, combing it over and back again to give an appearance of a wave. He wore round spectacles and when he spoke to you, he looked at an angle, using his peripheral vision. He scowled at Dickie and Jesse as they entered, then turned his eyes about a foot away from where I was standing.

  “What do you kids think you’re doing in here?” He paused for an answer and I realized he was talking to me. “Who are you? I’ve never seen you before.”

  Jesse and Dickie headed for the candy section and grabbed two Zagnut bars each, stuffing them in their back pockets. I was horrified. I took a step to the right to try to get in the man’s gaze, but he looked further away.

  “My name’s Matt,” I said, a tremble in my voice.

  “He’s the new preacher’s kid,” Jesse said, returning to the front and facing the man, acting as sweet as angel food cake. “Plumley’s his name.”

  “You’re Calvin’s boy?” Old Man Blake said.

  I nodded as Dickie walked out the front, closely followed by Jesse, their backs hitting the door. Old Yeller actually lifted his head and sniffed.

  “What are you doing with the likes of those two? You ought to know better.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said, looking at the licorice in the glass jars behind him and a stack of oversize Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pies. My mouth watered. I had become so familiar with Little Debbie that I felt related. “My dad says the ground is level at the foot of the cross.”

  “I attend that church,” the man said, leaning over and squinting at the door as glass clinked in the front cooler. “The ground may be level, but some people dig their own holes.”

  My father also said there was a high cost to low living, and I felt the weight of it right then. I fished in my pocket and found the five-dollar bill from the trip. “How much for four Zagnut bars and two pops?”

  He stared at me, or maybe it was my shoulder, and hit the register. It dinged and the drawer popped out and he handed me the change.

  “You’re not having anything?” he said.

  “I had a big breakfast.”

  Jesse rode with Dickie through town until we came to a wide place in the road. Jesse took a swig of her grape Nehi and Dickie drank his Orange Crush.

  “I almost won a hundred dollars last night playing Let’s Go to the Races,” Dickie said.

  “Playing the horses?” Jesse said. “That game is rigged.”

  I asked what they were talking about and Jesse explained that a grocery store a few miles away gave cards to customers with the number of a horse listed. If your horse won, you got money. You had to watch the TV show to know if you’d won.

  “I swear, that number seven was leading until right at the end,” Dickie protested. “Just veered off and ran into the fence.”

  “You might win a couple of dollars here and there, but they don’t give hundred-dollar tickets away in this part of the country.”

  “How do you know that?” Dickie said.

  “I just know it,” she said.

  “It could have happened. Number seven almost won.”

  I stood with them empty-handed. Finally Jesse said, “How come you didn’t get you a drink?”

  My mouth went dry. “Because it’s stealing. You shouldn’t do that.”

  “Old Man Blake is never gonna miss two pops and a couple of candy bars,” Jesse said. “The Blakes are rich as Rockefellers.”

  “Always have been,” Dickie said. “You’re new. You’ll figure it out.”

  “What if you owned that store?” I said. “What if it was your candy bars? How would you feel?”

  Jesse pulled the Zagnuts from her back pocket and tossed one to me. “We didn’t steal them. We just borrowed them.”

  “You stole them,” I said. “But I made it good. You have to promise—”

  “What do you mean you made it good?” Jesse said.

  “My dad gave me some money for our trip. He said I could buy fireworks from Stuckey’s. But we only found an Esso.”

  “So you paid for this?” Jesse said, an incredulous look on her face. “How did you know what we got?”

  I gave her a look. “Even the dog saw you grab the Zagnuts and pop.”

  Jesse looked at Dickie as if she were impressed with my powers of observation.

  “We have to take him to Heck’s next time we go,” Dickie said, smiling.

  “Look, what you guys do is your business. Killing a turtle. Stealing from the store. I can’t stop you. But when you’re with me, I don’t want you doing that. It’s not right. And you’ll get me in trouble.”

  Jesse stuffed the whole Zagnut in her mouth and chewed with relish. She wadded up the wrapper and tossed it away, and I thought of th
e Crying Indian in the TV commercial with a tear running down his cheek at the littering of his homeland.

  Jesse shook the hair out of her face and ran her tongue across her teeth to the back of her mouth. “You think you’re better than us, don’t you?”

  “I don’t think that at all.”

  “You think because you come from a big city and your daddy is a preacher you can tell us what’s right and wrong. And the reason you don’t want us to do bad things is how it makes you look.”

  “No, I want to be your friend. But a friend doesn’t let other people do stuff like that and not say anything.”

  “Is that so?” She looked away from me. “We got a man on a high horse, Dickie Darrel Lee. A high horse with ten speeds. And I think it’s time we let him ride it alone.”

  She climbed up on Dickie’s handlebars.

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “Come on.” I tried to think of something else to say to quell the injured feelings.

  Jesse shook her head.

  “Where to?” Dickie said to her, beginning to pedal.

  “Gotta get home and check on Daisy.” She stuck out her hand and threw it forward like a football official signaling a first down. “Take me home, country roads!”

  I watched the two ride away, then opened my Zagnut and found it ground to bits. It looked like it had been on Blake’s shelf since the Kennedy administration. I ate most of it and let the crumbs fall, then stuffed the wrapper in my pocket. I had never felt so alone.

  JUNE 1972

  After a dinner of pork chops, green beans, and sweet corn slathered in butter and as salty as Lot’s wife, I got out my glove and threw a tennis ball against the house. My mother said I was giving Mawmaw a headache, so I moved to the barn, but there weren’t two boards that were flat enough to get a grounder. The grass was tall around it and I was concerned about snakes. I had seen a grainy film on TV once of a woman from India who would climb up a mountain to a holy place, which was a little hole in a rock, and summon a king cobra. She danced and the cobra stood and swayed and she bent down and kissed the thing three times. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it. But that vision of the snake danced in my own head on the farm, and I wondered when I would encounter one and what I would do.