by Chris Neeley
His asthma hadn't kicked up in a while and he'd like to keep it that way. When he was younger he had attacks that had made him feel like he was going to die, but now he knew what to do. Just relax and ride them out. It wasn't going to kill him, it was just something that he had to put up with. Sometimes he had an attack after he heard things in the night. Maybe, it was a release valve for his body, warning him not to get involved.
This time, though, he felt that his family was threatened.
He would get involved, asthma or not.
James heard Seph come up on the back porch. He looked up and watched his father walk through the screen door.
Seph looked pale, haggard, as if he hadn't slept last night, either. James didn't think that moonshine was the only cause of the crappy way that his father looked.
James watched him as he walked to the kitchen sink. His mother moved away from his father when he approached and James felt the tension between them. His father washed his hands in the dishwater and dried them on a towel, then poured himself a cup of coffee and brought it to the table with him.
He sat down across from James and sipped the steaming coffee.
James watched him.
"What's the matter with you?" his father asked when he noticed that James was looking at him strangely.
"Nothing. I heard something again last night." James watched Seph's face for some kind of reaction.
His father turned a paler shade of gray, but didn't look at him.
"You hear things all the time. When are you going to learn that they don't mean anything, huh?" Seph got up from the table and went back outside.
By Monday, James was hearing the strange heartbeats every night. He watched his father as he patched a rail in the fence the hogs had knocked down. The last few weeks, James had felt as if they had been watching each other, waiting for something to happen.
Seph pounded the last nail in the fence post and wiped off the sweat that threatened to sting his eyes. It was two o'clock in the afternoon and the sun pounded down on the man and boy, leeching water from them, trying to boil them in their own juices.
Seph looked to his son. "I think I'll go over and see what's up with Matthew. You put this stuff away for me." He dropped the hammer onto the ground next to the toolbox and started to walk toward the house.
James shaded his eyes and watched his father's back. When Seph was half way to the house, James called out. "Dad, could I talk to you for a minute?"
Seph turned back, propping one hand on his hip. "What's up?"
James walked across the gravel to where his father stood. He wasn't sure how to begin. He had to say something. Every time that his father went to Matthew's, James could hear his mother crying in her room.
James cleared his throat.
"Dad, why, all of a sudden, are you going to Matthew's two times in one week?"
Seph let out a 'Hhmph'. "Who are you to be asking?"
"It's just that, well, Mom gets upset when you go over there and I was just wondering if maybe you could stay around the house tonight." James held his breath.
"Why should I? Your Mom doesn't pay me much mind anymore and it's no business of yours anyway, now is it? So I suggest that you worry about your own problems, like what little girl you want to date and how you're going to finish school and take over the farm."
His father's face had taken on a reddish cast. He was getting angry. But so was James.
"I've told you, Dad, I'm not taking over this farm. When I finish school, I'm getting as far away from this hill country as I can."
His father took a hold of the front of his shirt and pulled James to him until they were face to face. "You will do what I tell you to do and you will take over this farm because it has been in this family for generations and no son of mine is going to break that tradition. Do I make myself clear?" He shoved James away from him and turned away.
James couldn't let it drop. His chest was starting to feel tight, a good sign that he was going to have an attack, but he was going to finish this conversation. He stomped after his father.
"Are you really going to Matthew's or are you going to see someone else?" James spat out. He had a feeling that his father had been doing something besides drinking.
Seph stopped, one hand on the screen door. "What is that supposed to mean?" he said without turning around.
"What do you think?" James was pushing it and he knew it.
Seph turned his head just enough to lock a searing gaze on his son. "You mind your own business, boy." He pulled the screen door open, still glaring at James.
In slow motion, James caught a movement out of the corner of his eye. Black wings flapped. His father turned to walk in the door. The black bird swooped, cutting in front of his father. James' mouth formed the word 'no', but there was no sound. He watched his father raise a hand, trying to swipe the bird away. The bird ducked under it and flew into the house.
James' stomach rolled.
Everything started moving in regular time again.
James heard his mother let out a scream. His father stomped through the door.
James stood frozen in the sunlight, remembering something that Aunt Doll had told him when he was about five years old.
They had gone to visit Aunt Doll in the nursing home, just like they did every Saturday morning. She had more wrinkles than anyone he had ever seen and James was afraid to ask just how old she was. He hated going to the nursing home, hated seeing 'his Doll' in the tiny room that she spent her days in, doing nothing but sitting in her wheelchair and staring out at the world as it passed her by. He had always pictured her sitting in an old rocker on the front porch of some shack in the hills of Tennessee. She was that southern. His Mom had told him that was exactly how Aunt Doll had lived, until she couldn't take care of herself anymore and they had to put her in the home.
This particular visit had left a lasting impression on the young James.
James held his mother's hand as they walked through the halls of the nursing home that day. The smells of the place always scared him. Smells of antiseptic, old pee, and medicine.
To James, they were the smells of death.
He glanced in the open doors of the patients' rooms as he and his parents passed by. Old men sat in bed, drool sliding down their chins. Old women sat talking to no one. He looked up at his mother's face. She stared straight ahead, her only pair of high heels clicking loudly on the shiny linoleum floor.
They turned down another corridor, passing a decrepit old man who had been tied into his wheelchair with a sheet. Someone had left him parked in the hall. The old man giggled to himself as they passed. James tightened his grip on his mother's hand and looked the other way.
James' father stopped in front of the open door that was Aunt Doll's room to let him and his mother go in first.
James let go of his mother's hand for the first time since they had gotten out of the truck.
Aunt Doll sat in a wheelchair in front of the room's only window. She was facing the door, her sparse white hair backlit by the sun that streamed in. Aunt Doll reached her age-spotted hands toward him and James ran to her.
"My James, boy," Aunt Doll said in her crackling voice and hugged him as tight as her old arms could manage.
"Aunt Doll," James said, hugging her middle.
She wasn't really James' aunt, but was his mother's great-aunt.
"James, be careful," his mother said, coming into the room. "Aunt Doll isn't as strong as she used to be. You might hurt her." Chloe pulled on the back of James' shirt.
"You leave this'n alone, Chloe Mayhew. He's my favorite boy," Aunt Doll said. With her bony hands, Aunt Doll took him by the arms and held him out away from her. "Look at you," she said, grinning.
James thought her teeth looked too big for her mouth and he wanted to ask her if they were real but he minded his manners and grinned at her, instead.
"You'uns go on," Aunt Doll said, waving away his mother and father, who was still standing in the doorway, "
I want to talk a-might with this here boy."
Chloe looked at Seph. He shrugged his shoulders and wandered out the door. Chloe turned back to Aunt Doll. "Will you be okay?" she asked, eyebrows raised.
"Would you git?" Aunt Doll waved her away with two sharp flicks of her wrist.
"James, you be on your best behavior," Chloe said, pointing her finger.
"Yes, ma'am."
Chloe slung her purse over her shoulder, gave James one more stern look and, heels clicking, walked back out into the hall.
Aunt Doll turned James around to face her. "Git yourself a chair and come sit 'side me." She grinned her toothy grin.
James found a straight-back chair beside the hospital bed and dragged it over beside the wheelchair. He climbed up on it and turned around. His feet dangled a foot above the floor.
Aunt Doll patted his leg.
"Let's begin your teachin'. I got lots to tell you, James, and not much time left to do it, so I want you to listen and hear me."
James straightened in his chair and watched the old woman's face.
"James," she began, her eyes wet and glistening, "you're the onlyest one that treats me like I'm not tetched," she tapped a finger against the side of her head, "in the head. You know what I mean." She patted his leg again and he smiled.
"Now, James. I look in your eye and do you know what I see?"
James shook his head.
"I see an old soul." Aunt Doll leaned toward him. "A wise one, to boot. You may be only five-year-old, honey, but you know things, don't ya?"
James thought that he knew what she was talking about. "You mean, when I see things--signs--and I can tell something's going to happen?" he asked.
"You got that right. Now, I'm goin' to educate you on these 'signs'. Your Momma and Daddy may think I'm crazy, but a body knows things. Things that they think they are too smart to take serious. You and I know that these signs matter."
James knew she was right. He settled down to listen.
"The first thing is when a bird flies inside the house, no matter how he gits in there, someone in the family is goin' to die. Mark my word. That is a sure sign, James. I know that you're young, but you need to know these things. Another sign of death close by is a dog a-howlin'," Aunt Doll poked James in the chest. "Not the regular howlin' at the moon kind'a thing. A dog howlin' in the daylight. In the daylight and at the ground. That's the worst sign of all." Aunt Doll looked him in the eye. "Are you understandin' me?"
"Yes, ma'am." James did listen. Aunt Doll had so many stories to tell and James loved to hear them. She was old, so to James, she knew more than anybody.
James heard his mother's heels clicking in the hallway. He squirmed in his chair. James would remember what the old woman had told him. He would definitely remember.
The old woman had told him many things before her body had given in to death. Fear sliced at James' heart, forcing him into action. There was a bird in the house. James reached inside his shirt pocket and pulled out his inhaler, took a hit from it, and headed for the house to help the family catch the bird.
When James went through the door into the house, it was utter chaos.
Seph was swiping at the bird, trying to catch it in his cap. Chloe had ducked down by the sink and threw her apron over her head and was screaming, "Get that thing! Get it out!" James' younger brother, Cliff, and his sister, Fern, were running around like two wild animals, trying to catch it with their bare hands.
The bird squawked and bounced off the ceiling. Feathers flew around the room.
James raced out to the barn and got his father's big fishing net and ran back to the house.
"Goddamn it, James, catch that blasted thing," his father yelled.
James swung the net. He missed.
"Catch him, James, catch him, catch him," Fern said, dancing around the room.
The bird flew out of the kitchen and into the front room. James followed, moving slowly. Maybe the bird would light somewhere.
The bird dropped onto the couch. It stood with its beak open, panting, its beady eyes wild with fear.
James moved toward it, one step at a time, slowly raising the net. The bird hopped once. James froze and waited. The bird looked away from James for a split second and he brought the net down on top of it.
The bird squawked and tried to beat its wings against the netting.
James talked to it. "Come on, calm down." He gingerly put his hands around the bird's wings, holding them in place. He kept the net over the bird and carried it, one hand holding the net, the other clasped around the bird's wings and went towards the kitchen.
"Somebody open the door."
Fern piped up. "Can we keep it? Can we keep it, Daddy?"
Seph opened the door for his son. "No, Fern, we can't keep a wild thing."
James carried the bird outside and away from the house.
James walked out to the road and carefully placed the net on the ground. He reached underneath. Pulling the bird out from the netting, Aunt Doll's words from long ago echoed in his mind.
Watch for signs, James. Watch.
James held the bird in his hands for a moment, feeling its heart fluttering in its breast. Anger flooded James. Why had it flown into the house? He wanted to crush it, crush it in his hands. It was an omen, a bad sign, this bird. James took a deep breath and released the bird, knowing that killing it wouldn't change things.
He looked back toward the house.
Seph was standing just outside the kitchen door, watching. James stared back at his father. Seph turned and walked into the house.
***
To Anna Caine, this day, like the last two, had dawned way too bright. She hadn't felt well over the past weekend and now it was Monday and she still didn't feel herself. When she had gotten out of bed this morning, she had to run for the outhouse as soon as her feet had touched the floor. Her stomach had heaved until there had been nothing left to heave up. She wiped her mouth on the back of her hand, remembering that her Momma had told her that when she had carried Anna, she had heaved from day one. And that hadn't been the only problem that her Momma had had.
Anna went back into the house and washed her face with ice-cold water. Then she got dressed and went on out to the garden. After all, just because her stomach was rolling didn't mean she could laze around. There was work to be done.
She toiled in the garden, hoeing between the rows of beans. The sun bore down on her, making her head throb in time with her heart.
She kept working, holding her hand to her growing belly every once in a while.
***
James walked into the kitchen, heading for his room. His chest was feeling really tight. A weight sat on it, trying to crush him. If he was going to have an attack, he wanted to be in his room so that he could be alone while he waited it out. They weren't as bad anymore. Not in the summer, anyway. Sometimes in the fall, when his father burned the leaves that the kids had raked up in the yard, he thought that his chest would burst.
He started up the steps to his room.
An eerie wail lifted out in the yard, climbing to a high pitch, then dying back down. It ran up James' spine. He stopped on the stairs and listened.
It rose again, more haunting this time.
"What in the world?" James said, going back down the stairs.
He went into the kitchen where his mother was peeling potatoes at the sink in preparation for supper.
The howl lifted again, reached a peak, then traveled back down the scale.
"Do you hear that?" Chloe said, looking out the window over the sink. "Come look at this."
James walked up behind his mother and looked out the window at the back yard.
Custer, their golden retriever, stood in the middle of the back yard, head down. It looked like he was staring at the ground in front of him. The hair on his back stood straight up. He started to howl again, the loneliest sound that James had ever heard.
"Look at that," Chloe said, standing beside James.
/> Custer was about mid-howl, but he never raised his head.
He was howling at the ground.
Chloe rubbed her arms. "That dog is giving me the shivers."
James stared out the window, watching as Custer took in another deep breath to raise another howl.
"Where's Dad?" he asked, eyes still glued on the dog.
"He's still at Matthew's. Lord, I wish that dog would shut up."
The sun dipped below the branches of the maple tree and blinded James.
"What would make a dog howl like that? In the day time? And at the ground, to beat all?" Chloe asked, peeling another potato over the sink.
James walked away from the sink, his legs stiff. His breath was starting to rasp as he struggled to breathe. He went to the back porch and got his old worn tennis shoes and placed them upside down on the threshold of the back door. Aunt Doll had told him that if you wanted to shut up a howling dog, place your shoes over the threshold and he wouldn't howl. But of course, if somebody removed the shoes and whatever had caused the dog to howl wasn't done yet, the howling would begin again.
Custer's howl was immediately cut off.
"What the...? James, did that dog choke or something? You'd better go check on him." Chloe kept peeling potatoes, oblivious to James' wheeze.
James went out the door and sat down on the step.
He pulled out his inhaler and gave himself one shot, then another. He tried to breathe the air out of his lungs. His breath whistled in his chest. He closed his eyes and concentrated on his breathing. Slowly, the hand that was squeezing his chest released its grip and he could breathe again.
Custer came up in front of James, his eyes looking forlorn. James reached out to stroke his scruffy neck. "What are you trying to tell me, boy?"
"James. I swear. Sitting out here, with your old shoes holding the door open so the flies can get in." Chloe reached down to pick up the shoes that were holding the door open.
"Mom, don't..." James reached toward her, but wasn't fast enough.
Chloe picked up the shoes and shut the door, dropping the shoes on the inside. "Don't you tell me 'don't'. I don't want nothin’ more flying in the house. Now you leave this door shut." Chloe disappeared into the house.