Fiery Rivers

by Daefyd Williams

  “I am,” Ron declared. He stood up and jumped off the roof like Doug had.

  “You gonna do that?” Devon asked Del. I do believe in the Holy Ghost. I do believe in the Holy Ghost. I do believe in the Holy Ghost.

  “Yeah,” Del said, “I ain’t gonna be no chicken.” He stretched out his arms and jumped off. When he had righted himself, he looked up at Devon. “C’mon, Dev. It’s fun!”

  Devon hesitantly stood up. He seriously doubted that this was going to be fun. He extended his arms and jumped. He hit so hard his insides hurt, but he rolled and came to his feet as the other boys had done.

  “Woo hoo!” shouted Ron.

  Del slapped Devon on the back. “You did it, Dev!”

  “Let’s do it again!” Doug urged.

  Devon shook his head no. “I promised Mommy that I’d help ‘er pack. You comin’, Del?” I do believe in the Holy Ghost. I do believe in the Holy Ghost.

  “Yeah, I better go too, I guess. We’ll see ya before we go.”

  “You ain’t chicken, are ya?” Doug challenged. “Buckbuck buck BUCK!” emulating the clucking of a chicken.

  “No, we ain’t chicken. We jus’ gotta go pack. Bye.”

  As they walked down Marcella Drive toward their driveway, Devon said, “That hurt!”

  “I know. I didden wanta do it again. I’m glad you thought about the packin’ thing.”

  “We really do have to pack.” I do believe in the Holy Ghost. I do believe in the Holy Ghost.

  “I know.”

  It was Thursday, and moving day was Friday. Devon, Del, and Gloryann were at Rennie’s house, enjoying their last day with Rennie and Angela. The boys were outside in the hazy, muggy, hot August sunshine, careening around the front and backyard and around the apple tree in the go-kart. Gloryann and Angela were on the living room floor, cutting out pictures of cats and kittens from magazines and pasting them into Angela’s scrapbooks. Angela rocked back and forth as she worked, her body synchronized to the beat of an ethereal melody only she could hear. She allowed Gloryann to cut out the pictures, but she would not permit her to glue them onto the page. Ever since Dukie had ascended to heaven, she had arranged the pictures to suggest butterfly wings and had coordinated the colors—all yellow cats together on one page, all white cats on another, all black cats, all calico cats. Leona came into the room and signed to Angela that it was time for dinner. She smiled, nodded her head, brought the cat picture up to her lips that she had just glued and softly kissed it, closed the scrapbook, stood up, and took Gloryann by the hand and walked to the bathroom, where they washed their hands.

  Leona opened the back screen door. “Rennie! Boys! Time to come in and eat some dinner!” she shouted.

  “OK, Mommy,” Rennie called back. Devon came around the corner of the house on the go-kart and pulled up to Rennie and Del standing beneath the apple tree. Rennie leaned over and turned off the key. “It’s time to eat, Dev.”

  “OK. Are we still gonna ride it after dinner?” I do believe in the Holy Ghost.

  “Yeah.”

  They went into the house. After washing their hands, the boys sat down at the table and waited for Leona to say grace. On their plates were ham and Velveeta cheese sandwiches on Wonder bread, Mike-Sell’s potato chips, and potato salad. Leona was pouring cherry Kool-Aid into glasses at the counter. When she had finished putting the glasses beside the plates, she sat down. “Dear Lord, we thank thee for the pleasure of havin’ Del, Devon, and Gloryann come into our lives. We pray that they will be happy in their new home and successful at their new schools and prosperous when they become adults. We thank thee for the bounty we are about to receive and beseech thee to move in Lemuel’s heart so that he will come to the cross and ask thee to forgive his sins. In Jesus’ name, amen.”

  “Amen,” the boys echoed.

  “You lookin’ forward to movin’ to Northridge?” she asked, as she looked at Devon and then Del.

  “Nah, not really,” Del said. “I never been in any other school district except Franklin.” He bit into his sandwich.

  “What about you, Dev? You lookin’ forward to movin’ to Northridge? What grade are you gonna be in?”

  “Thick,” Devon replied with his mouth full of potato chips. He swallowed and tried again. “Sixth. I doeknow if I’m gonna like it.” I do believe in the Holy Ghost. I do believe in the Holy Ghost. “I ain’t thought about it.” He did not want to tell her that in five years of being in school he could only remember one friend, Willie, when he was in the third grade, and that had ended when he was placed in a different school the next year. School was something that he wished he could avoid, as it was always replete with taunts and jeers from the other children because of his size and clumsiness.

  When dusk came, and the orange sun began to sink below the western horizon and the scattered cumulus clouds began to darken, the children knew that it was time to go home. The day had been filled with bike riding, go-kart driving, and, on Gloryann’s part, cutting and gluing pictures of cats into scrapbooks. They were all in the front yard, where Devon and Del had laid their bikes. Del awkwardly stuck out his hand. Rennie, just as awkwardly, took it and shook it. “Bye, Rennie,” Del said.

  “Bye, Del.” He offered his hand to Devon. “Bye, Dev.” Devon shook it. “You’ll call me, right?”

  “Yeah,” Del said. “We will.”

  Leona hugged each of the boys. “We’re gonna miss you. I don’t know who Rennie’s gonna play with, with you gone. Or who Angie’s gonna find to help her cut out her cats.” She knelt beside Gloryann and looked into her face. “Honey, I know Angie can’t tell you herself, but I know she’s hurtin’ inside because you’re leavin’.” She embraced her and started to cry.

  Angela tugged at her sleeve until Leona moved away from Gloryann. She hugged Gloryann tightly and began to wail, her face turned towards the sky, “Miwah! Miwah! Miwaaaaaaaah! Miwah! Miwah! Miwaaaaaaaah!” Leona smoothed her hair while she vented her sorrow. Finally, she gently pried her away from Gloryann and signed to her that it was time for them to go. Angela continued to sob as Devon and Del got on their bikes. Leona reached down and lifted Gloryann and set her down atop Del’s handlebar. They rode off, waving as they went.

  “Bye, Del. Bye, Dev. Bye, Glory,” Rennie said to their backs as they left the driveway and turned right onto the road, fighting back tears.

  “Miwah, miwah, miwah, miwah,” Angela kept repeating softly to herself as she cried.

  Leona cried silently, trying hard not to wail like Angela had done.

  Del and Devon were upstairs in the bedroom of their new home on Hiawatha Drive in Dayton, Ohio, a two-story white clapboard house on the corner of Hiawatha and Neva Drive, four blocks from the Great Miami River which coursed between levees that had been constructed after the Great Dayton Flood of 1913. They were unpacking their clothes and putting them into the chest of drawers that stood beside the doorway. It had taken almost two days for Uncle Dwayne, Uncle Butchie, Uncle Rufus, and Adam to move them using Dwayne’s truck. Now, everything had been moved inside, the boys’ beds had been put together, and they were putting their clothes into the drawers.

  “What time ya hafta go to band practice on Monday?” Devon asked Del. I do believe in the Holy Ghost.

  “Eight o’clock,” Del answered.

  “How long you gotta stay?”

  “Till noon. Why?”

  “You wanta ride down to the river after we eat dinner?”

  “Yeah, if Mommy and Daddy don’t need us.”

  Del had started playing trombone in the sixth grade and had been in the Franklin Junior High School marching band, which had played at sporting events and school assemblies. Now he was a freshman and was going to be a member of the Northridge High School marching band and would be practicing with the band a week before school started on September fifth, the day after Labor Day, to learn the marching drills for the first football game of the year against the Vandalia Aviators, Northridge’s arch-rival. Marie and Adam had never
gone to see him play anywhere because they believed that good Christians did not participate in the things of the world. Del tried to practice playing his trombone every night, Monday through Friday, when school was in session. It was not at Adam and Marie’s insistence, however. It was out of his own desire to be good. They were uninvolved in their children’s academic lives. They just expected them to get good grades, and they did.

  Marie had been valedictorian in a class of twelve students at West Elkton High School in West Elkton, Ohio, and had graduated in 1945. She had been a reporter for the West Elkton Megaphone, the school’s newspaper. She had had a soldier sweetheart during the war, and there had been hints in the paper that she wrote to him every day that he was gone. It had not been Adam. She had met him after a football game at which she had been a cheerleader for the West Elkton Arrows.

  He had been a soldier in the infantry during the war. He and his friend, Buck, had decided to join the army together to fight for America against the German juggernaut that was crushing Europe. He had passed the physical; Buck had not because he had flat feet. So Adam went to boot camp by himself and was in north Africa, one of the troops chasing Rommel, two months after he enlisted.

  He had had the courage to approach Marie after the game and strike up a conversation, but he had forgotten to ask for her name or telephone number. He had been attracted to her beautiful face and shapely figure and her long red hair. He had never had a girlfriend with red hair. He somehow acquired her telephone number but not her name, so when he called the next day, he simply asked, “Is this the house where the red-headed girl lives?” When she came to the telephone, he introduced himself as the soldier who had talked to her after the football game last night. He had forgotten that he was no longer in the army.

  Marie was immediately interested. “You’re a soldier?”

  “Yeah. Uh, I was. I got out last month.”

  “Were you overseas?” Marie inquired, hopefully. The boy to whom she had written for the past two years had been in exotic Europe.

  “Yeah. I was in Africa and then France.”

  “Wow! Really?” She had never met anyone who had been outside the country.

  “You wanta meet somewhere so’s I can tell you all about it?”

  Marie hesitated. She had always imagined that she and Carl would end up getting married. He was the sailor to whom she had been writing for the past three years. She decided that one meeting to hear about this boy’s adventures wouldn’t hurt anything. “Sure,” she replied. “Where do you wanta go?”

  “How about we go somewhere an’ git some burgers an’ fries? They ain’t got none o’ them in Europe, an’ I had me a hankerin’ for some good burgers an’ fries since I got home. You know anywhere close?”

  “Well, I do, if you don’t mind drivin’ to Middletown.”

  “I don’t. What’s your address?”

  “It’s 4976 Preble County Line Road.”

  “Got it. 4976 Preble County Line Road. How about six?”

  “OK, I’ll be ready.”

  “OK, see you at six. Oh, what’s your name?”

  “Marie. What’s yours?”

  “Adam. Bye, Marie. See you at six.”

  “OK, bye.” Marie was a little concerned that Adam sounded as though he had just escaped from the Kentucky hollows, but it was only one date.

  They were married four months later.

  Adam had been racked by anxiety a month before the marriage, for he had not told Marie the truth about himself since he had met her. He had told her that he had never been married and that he was twenty-two years old. In reality, he was twenty-eight and had previously been married to a sixteen-year-old girl in Missoula, Montana, before he enlisted in the army. He had worked himself into a frenzy about whether or not he should tell her, constantly biting his nails and pacing the floor at night, unable to sleep. Finally, he asked his older sister, Zona, if he should tell her. She told him that if he didn’t tell her, he would regret it, because she might just want an annulment if he waited until after they were married. So he had rehearsed over and over what he would say to her, and now, finally, he was going to tell her the truth.

  They were sitting in his 1940 Packard in the driveway of her father’s house, a converted barn, when he stopped kissing her and pulled away.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Wouldjou hate me if I told ya sump’n’?”

  “What? Of course not,” she replied, concerned. “What is it?”

  “‘Member when we first met an’ I told you I was twenty-two?”

  “Yeah . . . You’re not?” “How old can he be?” she thought. “An’ why is he tellin’ me now?”

  “No. I . . . I’m twenty-eight.”

  “Twenty-eight!?” she repeated, incredulously. “Why, you’re an old man!” He was ten years older than she.

  Adam laughed. “Well, not exactly an old man, but I am ten years older’n you.”

  Marie was flabbergasted. “Why didden you tell me before?” The more she thought about it, the angrier she got. “An’ why didjou wait till the night before our weddin’ to tell me?” she asked, her voice rising.

  “Honey, I thought . . .”

  “Don’t honey me!”

  “OK, OK. I didden think you would wanta go out with me if you knew I was twenty-eight.”

  “I wouldn’ta. You’re an old man!”

  He laughed and tried to put his arm around her, but she pulled away.

  “Don’t touch me!” she commanded.

  “OK, OK.” “Mize well git it all out now,” he told himself. “She’s already pissed off at me.” “An’ there’s sump’n’ else, too.”

  “What? You’re a murderer an’ a rapist, too?”

  “No. I been married before,” he said flatly.

  “OH, NO!!” she wailed, as she turned her face to the window and started to sob. The ramparts of her fantasy world had just come tumbling down around her; she felt as though her heart were being ripped asunder. She had dreamed all her life of marrying a handsome man like Adam, had imagined how wonderful their first night together would be, each of them unaware of the intimacies of lovemaking, but eager to learn together. Now all that was gone, destroyed, quashed. He had been married! He was not a virgin, as she was. He already knew about lovemaking! HE ALREADY KNEW!! “How,” she gulped. “How long were you married?”

  “Almost two years,” he replied softly.

  “Two years?” she echoed, as she turned towards him. “Did . . . didjou have any kids?” she asked, hoping against hope that he would say no.

  “She had a little girl.”

  “Wha’da ya mean, she had?”

  “I married ‘er ‘cause she was pregnant by another man an’ I wanted ‘er to keep ‘er good name.”

  This was not making any sense to Marie. “Why wouldjou do that? Why would any man do that?”

  “Well, me an’ her got to talkin’ one day. She would come out an’ talk to the guys where we’s workin’ cuttin’ trails through Glacier National Park for the Triple Cees, an’ she told me that she was pregnant, that her fifteen-year-old boyfriend had up an’ run away when she told him she was pregnant. So I kinda felt sorry for her, her bein’ just a kid herself an’ all, so I ask her if she wanted to git hitched so she could keep ‘er good name, an’ the baby wouldn’t be born a bastard. She said ‘yes,’ an’ that was that.”

  “It was as simple as that?”

  “Yeah, it was.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Melissa.”

  “Why didden you stay married?”

  “Well . . . it just didden work out. She didden think that I would amount to nothin’ ‘cause I didden have no book learnin’, so she ask me for a divorce adder two year.” What he did not tell her was that sex with Melissa had not been satisfying for either of them; they had always made love with him atop her, her heels flat on the bed. In that position, he always came too soon, and she never came. He hadn’t even known that a woman coul
d come until she told him. He had wanted them to try oral sex, but because he was only twenty-two and had been a virgin himself when he married her, he was too afraid to try or to ask her. He did not think it would be smart to bring up the sex thing to Marie, her being a virgin and all.

  “How old was the baby when you left?”

  “She was two.”

  “How old is she now?”

  “Well, let’s see. We got married in ’41, so I guess she’s four now.”

  “Do you . . . do you keep in touch?”

  “Nah. She told me adder the divorce that she wanted to start new after we got divorced an’ ask me not to call ‘er or write ever again, an’ I hain’t. An’ that’s the truth.”

  “Promise?”

  “I swear to God it’s true.” Adam made a cross with his forefinger over his heart. “Are you . . . ?” Adam hesitated, not wanting to ask the question out of fear of hearing the answer. “Are you callin’ off the weddin’ now?”

  “By all rights, I should,” Marie answered, wiping the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand. “You lied to me. You told me you were twenty-two when you were really twenty-eight, an’ you’ve been married before, an’ have a daughter.”

  “She ain’t mine.”

  “So you say. How can I believe that when you ain’t told me nothin’ but lies since I’ve known you?”

  “I swear to God she ain’t mine. I just wanted to give the baby a good name. That’s all. That’s why I married ‘er, an’ that’s the only reason. I felt sorry for her. I didden love ‘er. I love you. Will you forgive me for lyin’ to ya?”

  Out of the shards of her broken dreams a new Marie arose, stronger and more resilient than the old Marie, but her heart forever scarred by the knowledge that the man whom she had thought was perfect in all ways had metamorphosed right before her eyes into a contemptible liar. She would never forgive him or forget this night, but she would marry him.