by Alden Nowlan
And there was snow: mountains and deserts of snow. The road became a canal between great banks of snow. And on stormy nights, snow sifted in through the cracks around the windows and lay in crystalline mounds on the sills.
When Kevin’s ears were frost-bitten, Judd took the wash basin to the yard and scooped up snow. While Kevin bent over the sink, Judd held handfuls of snow against his ears, held it there till it melted in the warmth of his flesh as pain shot through his scalp, and he whimpered and squirmed in the man’s hands. “Whinin’ ain’t a-gonna do no good, young feller,” Judd growled and almost gleefully (or so it seemed to Kevin) he reached for another handful of snow . . .
Every morning, Judd rose from his cot before daylight, breakfasted on fried potatoes and warmed-over beans, and trudged into the woods with his axe across his shoulder. He was chopping firewood — illegally — on the crown lands south of the creek. It was almost certain that he would never be able to haul the wood home. There was no logging road to that part of the forest. In the spring, the cords of beech and maple that he had felled, sawed, and tiered would be left to rot. But he went forth every morning and came home exhausted every night. “It’s foolishness, Judd,” Mary told him impatiently. “You might just as well stay home where it’s warm.” But Judd always gave the same answer: “If a man ain’t doin’ anythin’ I guess he might jist as well be dead.”
In the evening, Judd lay on the cot in a stupor of weariness, and Mary and Kevin sat for hours without uttering a word for fear that some chance remark would strike the spark that would bring him to his feet in an explosion of rage. Usually, Kevin read the Bible while Mary perused romances containing heroes named Julian and Adrian and Anton and heroines named Cecily and Cynthia and Mifawny. All of the heroes were tall, dark, and handsome, and all of the heroines had honey-coloured hair.
And sometimes, Mary wrote letters to imaginary correspondents. Unknown to his mother, Kevin had read many of these letters. The bulk of them were addressed to an apparently rich, aristocratic, and understanding matron named Lady Astrid Villiers.
My Dear Lady Villiers:
In this desolate and frigid outpost, your letters are like a breath of warm spring air. You are so wise and so familiar with the ways of the world that there must be times when you weary of the trials and tribulations of a silly little country girl like me. But I do not think I could continue to bear my burden if I did not know that there was in the world one person at least with a capacity for understanding and sympathy.
Geoffrey, the man whom I met in Boston last summer (Mary had never been in Boston) wants me to run away with him to New York. But I have told him that my duty is here with my little boy. I tremble to think of his fate in a cruel world if left to the mercies of that being whom I once called my husband and whom I am still forced to call by that title, although he is no longer capable of inspiring the faintest spark of affection in my suffering heart.
I have suffered so much, my dear Lady Astrid, yet I know my duty. I must remain a prisoner in this dismal place to which I have been consigned by a cruel fate. If it were not for my little boy —
And so on, for eighteen pages, which Kevin read with mingled fascination and scorn.
Grandmother O’Brien continued to sit in the rocker under the clock shelf, the heated brick hugged against her pain. She ate her milk and cracker gruel and read her Bible and, as in the past, she sang:
There is a fountain filled with blood,
Drawn from Emmanuel’s veins,
And sinners plunged beneath that flood
Lose all their guilty stains.
Though he was beginning to think of himself as a prophet of the Lord, one who would smite sinners with whips and swords and call down fire from heaven upon the habitations of iniquity, Kevin was still terrified of blood. At times it seemed to him that the world was not whirling through space but rather bobbing like a cork on a churning ocean of blood. There was the blood of deer and cats and fish and cattle. There was the blood of porcupines and raccoons and sparrows. There was the blood of Dink Anthony on Alton Stacey’s hands. There was the blood of Av Farmer trickling from his nostrils and the corners of his mouth. There was the blood of Kevin O’Brien. And there was the blood of Christ.
He wondered what Christ had felt at the moment the nails were driven into His feet and hands. What had He thought as He felt the steel touching his skin, heard the swish of the hammer as the crucifier lifted it for the first stroke? In Kevin’s imagination the hammer made a sound like that of the strap hissing through the air.
Perhaps, if he were a prophet, he too would be crucified! Men with faces like those of Riff Wingate and Harold Winthrop would scourge him and crown him with thorns. And, nailed to the tree, he would smile down pityingly at the mother kneeling beneath his feet.
A thought struck him like a thunderbolt! Perhaps he was Jesus born again! The Bible said that Jesus would return. And the Jesus pictured in the Bible had reddish-brown hair and blue-grey eyes like Kevin’s. If he were a man and wore a beard — why, he would look exactly like the Christ in the Bible! But did not the Bible say that on His Second Coming Christ would fall from the sky with a shout? If that were so, then he could only be a prophet — a forerunner like John the Baptist. But, in any case, God would give him a sign in due time. And if he were to be crucified, God would give him the strength and courage to endure the nails.
“What are you thinking about, Scampi?”
Rather worriedly, his mother smiled at him across the lamp-lit table.
“Oh, I wasn’t thinkin’ about much of anythin’.”
“A penny for your thoughts.”
“I guess mebbe they wouldn’t be worth it.”
He was annoyed at her for trying to insinuate herself into his mind. Why won’t she leave me be? Why does she want to know every thing I think and feel?
Shrugging, Mary turned back to her letter.
Immediately, his attitude changed. Why won’t she talk to me? Why does she want to waste her time writing silly old letters to people who aren’t even real?
Wearily, Judd rose from his cot and stoked the fire, banging stove lids and pokers.
“If it weren’t fer me I guess yuh fellers would let yerself freeze tuh death,” he growled.
Mary looked up from her writing and Kevin’s eyes left his Bible. There was a tenseness, a waiting, until Judd returned to the cot and closed his eyes. Grandmother O’Brien smiled and embraced her brick . . .
Then came the soldiers and brake the legs of the first, and of the other which was crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was dead already they brake not his legs: But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side and forthwith came there out blood and water . . .
A week before Christmas, Judd sold the hens. Old Biff Mason had informed him that he would not extend credit for such luxuries as fruits, nuts, and candies. In repeating the storekeeper’s words, Judd imitated his thin, querulous whine. “The way I’ve allus figgered it a man that cain’t afford tuh pay fer what he gits oughta call hisself lucky if he’n have bread and potatoes on his table,” Biff Mason had said. And Judd swore that when he found work again and paid the $200 he owed, he would drive his fist down Biff Mason’s throat and tell him he could put his store on his back and carry it to hell.
So one night, the hens were thrust into gunny sacks and trucked away. Kevin watched and listened at a window, excited by the men running to and fro in the dark dooryard and moved to pity by the squawking terror of the hens. “I ain’t never seed nor heard o’ sich foolishness in all my born days,” Grandmother O’Brien proclaimed from her rocker. “Goin’ without eggs all the rest o’ the winter jist so’s yuh’n have a heathenish feast on one day o’ the year!” And she turned her eyes toward heaven, as though to remind God that she accepted no responsibility for such sinful improvidence.
But the hen money was not spent on a feast. That same night, Judd went to the cabin of Madge Harker, the bootlegger, and bought rum and beer. He
staggered home drunk and the kitchen resounded with his song:
Here’s a cuckoo! There’s a cuckoo!
Here’s a cuckaroo!
Here’s a cuckoo! There’s a cuckoo!
There’s a cuckaroo!
His cheeks the colour of pickled beets and his hair tumbling over his forehead, he sang and shouted in drunken ecstasy — and Mary and Kevin knew that he was mocking them. Mute and stiff with anger and frustration, they watched their dreams of foods and gifts and decorations gurgle into his mouth. And each time he drank, he laughed and peered at them with red, taunting eyes.
He was still singing when Kevin and Mary went to bed.
Oh, the Jones boys
They built a mill
On the top of a hill
And they worked all night
And they worked all day
But they couldn’t make
That gah’damn saw mill pay
So the Jones boys
They built a still
On the top of the hill
And they worked one night
And they worked one day
And my Gawd didn’t
That little still pay!
Kevin’s eyes were wet as he wriggled down under the quilts on the cot in the living room. He shivered as the cold blankets covered his legs.
The grates of the stove were open and the reflected firelight cut a flickering, smokey-scarlet path to the kitchen door. He inhaled wood smoke and his mother’s perfume.
Without knowing quite why, he giggled. His mother laid her palm on his forehead.
“What’s wrong, Scampi? Are you feverish or something?”
He was giggling so hard he had difficulty in getting the words out. “Oh, I was jist thinkin’ about how the things that are funny and the things that are sad are all mixed up together,” he managed to blurt at last. “I mean, well, things happen — and you don’t know whether tuh cry or tuh laugh.”
And he giggled so loudly that he did not hear what his mother answered. He awoke without remembering how or when he had fallen asleep. It was night still, but he did not know if he had slept for hours or only for minutes.
From the open door of their bedroom came his parents’ voices.
“Get away from me, Judd,” Mary was saying. “For God’s sake, get away from me!”
Judd’s voice was as weird and chill as the wind that raked the window near Kevin’s head.
“Git away from me, she says! Git away from me says the cheatin’ little bitch! Eh! I’n jist hear her a-tellin’ Ernie Masters tuh git away from her. A fat chance of her a-tellin’ him that! No, what she’d be sayin’ tuh him would be, Ernie darlin’ would yuh please —” And here in a sniggering burlesque contralto, Judd inserted an obscenity.
“You’ll wake Scampi, Judd. Please go and lie down, Judd. You’re drunk and you’ll wake Scampi.”
Her words were half command, half supplication.
“You’ll wake Scampi, Judd. Please go and lie down, Judd. You’re drunk and you’ll wake Scampi,” he parroted. “Listen tuh the little bitch! Listen tuh her, will yuh! A helluva lot she cares about the boy — a helluva lot she cares about anythin’. Cheatin’ little bitch! Dirty cheatin’ little whore!”
Kevin strove to cover his ears, but his hands would not respond. Oh, please God, make them stop and I’ ll never ask you for anything again. I promise I won’t, God. Only make them stop, please.
“And a lot you care! He’s your son too! He’s just as much yours as he is mine!”
The light streaming through the door staggered and weaved so that Kevin knew Judd held the lamp in an unsteady hand.
“Eh! I ain’t so damn sure of that! I allus say that when yuh been cut by a crosscut saw it’s damn hard tuh tell which tooth did the most damage!” Again he cackled in a hideous parody of laughter. “I got me a damn good idea that there brat’s got a helluva sight more Masters blood in his veins than anythin’ else. The snivellin’ little bugger don’t act much like no O’Brien!”
“Judd!”
Oh, please God, don’t let him say anything more. Please, God. Please!
He heard the lamp being set on the floor or on a table.
“Mar.”
Judd’s voice was abashed, almost diffident.
“Go away! I hate you!”
Now Mary’s voice was harsh and arrogant, Judd’s plaintive and faltering.
“I guess mebbe I shouldn’t oughta said that, Mar. I guess mebbe I didn’t have no call tuh say that.”
“Get out!”
“All right, Mar, I’ll go back out tuh the kitchen and lay down and go tuh sleep. I won’t drink anythin’ more, Mar.”
“I don’t care what you do. Drink yourself to death if you want to. Go jump in the creek if you want to. But get out and leave me alone!”
“Look, Mar — in the mornin’ I’ll git me some more money and I’ll see that you and Kev have the best Christmas yuh’ve ever had in yer life. I promise I will, Mar. There weren’t no need of me gittin’ drunk like I did. There weren’t no need of it a-tall. I guess I’m gittin’ tuh be jist nothin’ but a drunkard. I don’t know how yuh put up with me. But I’ll go tuh the store in the mornin’, Mar and I’ll —”
“Just get out, Judd.”
“Mar, I’ll buy yuh a new dress. I’ll git me some more money and in the mornin’ I’ll —”
“Just get out, Judd,” she repeated wearily.
“All right, Mar.” His voice was contrite, defeated.
A moment later, Judd lurched out of the bedroom, the lamp bobbing in his hands, and staggered into the kitchen.
In one part of Kevin’s mind hate was an overturned lamp, spilling flaming kerosene. He did not fully understand Judd’s accusation. But he had said that the blood of Ernie Masters flowed in his veins. This dark and inscrutable riddle frightened and shamed Kevin more than it would have done had its meaning been made stark and plain. He almost prayed that God would strike his father dead where he lay. Then he remembered how the man had begged and promised.
Never before had he heard his father so abase himself. To Kevin this was almost equivalent to a reversal in the laws of nature. It was like a total eclipse of the sun, like hailstones falling in May . . .
Twenty-Three
During the whole of the following day, neither of Kevin’s parents spoke to the other. But Judd made much of Kevin. He called him “Kev,” a name he used only when he was seeking to be expansive and friendly, and smiled almost shyly as he asked him little tentative, self-effacing questions about his reading and his schoolwork. This humility and strained heartiness embarrassed Kevin. Every day the gulf between him and his father widened, and Judd’s attempts to bridge the gap were so pitiably inept that Kevin almost wept for him.
“Let’s see now, Kev,” Judd said, biting off a chew of tobacco, “I guess yer still makin’ out good at school, eh?”
“Yessir, I guess so.”
“What duh yuh like best — I mean which subjecks?”
“Hist’ry. I guess.”
“Well, now. Well. I guess yuh’ve learnt about Wolfe and Montcalm and alla them there fellers, eh?”
Ever since Kevin’s first year in school, his father — when he wanted to show that he shared his son’s interests — had mentioned Wolfe and Montcalm. They were the only historical characters he remembered.
“Yeah,” Kevin answered. “We learnt a little bit about them.”
“I guess you’n remember where they fought that big battle, eh?”
“No, I guess not,” Kevin lied. To repay his father for his friendliness he wished to give him this little honour.
Judd grunted with satisfaction. “Why, it were fought on the Plains a Abraham,” he asserted. He smiled with the expression of one scholar conversing with another.
Kevin slapped his forehead. “Gosh, sure! I remember now!”
“Oh, the old feller still remembers a few things, Kev. I usta kinda like school. Graded ever’ year I went.”
He chewed to
bacco, wiped his lips and blinked.
“Eddication’s a mighty fine thing, Kev. Yuh can’t git too much eddication, I allus say.”
“I guess that’s right.” Each year it became harder for Kevin to call his father “daddy.” But shyness and uncertainty kept him from changing the title. In recent months he had skirted the issue by calling him by name only when he had to.
In the afternoon, Judd announced that he had decided to sell the red cow. “The old bitch ain’t worth a-nothin’ anyways and I figger mebbe I’n talk old Biff Mason intuh takin’ her off my hands. If I’n talk fast enough I might even get me a pretty fair price fer her.” Rather sheepishly, he shuffled his feet and tugged at his cloth cap.
“Don’t do nothin’ foolish now,” Grandmother O’Brien cautioned.
Judd’s eyes widened comically. “Now, Ma, who said anythin’ about doin’ anythin’ foolish?” He winked at Kevin, as though enlisting him as his co-conspirator.
The old woman shook her head vigorously and increased the speed of her rocker.
“Mark my words, son, yuh keep on a-drinkin’ an’ a-runnin’ up store bills an’ a-sellin’ hens an’ cows an’ pretty soon yuh ain’t even gonna have a shirt tuh put tuh yer back. Wilful waste means woeful want, son. We’re poor folks — poor as dirt — an’ we gotta remember it!”
“Now, Ma, yer livin’ in the past. Times is changed.”