Wigford Rememberies

by Kyp Harness

The boy gapes up with wonder and stunned disbelief into the man’s red, burning, snarling face, the sudden hate-filled eyes, drops of spit flying from his mouth, the children all around backing away in awe. Mr. Morton lets the boy drop, plopping to the gravel, and turns quickly, clenching his fists and trudging back from the parking lot, breathing heavily through his nostrils. The children all stare at his sullen back as he walks away, none more astonished than Joseph reddening with shame as he sits on the gravel.

  Mr. Morton treads back to the broom, trying to get his breathing regular, feeling a murderous lunge begin to catch fire in his limbs, arresting it briefly, then returning to his broom, his heart beating violently, the pinprick feelings of cold sweat breaking out at his hairline. The children all disperse cautiously in the quick silence. One retrieves David’s glasses and hands them to him as the bell rings. Later that night in the old rundown farmhouse, David crawls across his mother’s lap, delightedly showing her his new pictures of the bugs.

  “Oh yes, there they are my boy, yes,” she says as he grins happily down on them. At their side, Mr. Crowe lies on his back on the couch, his T-shirt creeping up and exposing his large belly. He gazes at the television through motionless, half-closed eyes: it’s one of those nature shows, a herd of gazelles galloping across a distant plain.

  Heaven’s Golden Mansion

  Buzz staggers from the exit of the club into the empty parking lot, his brain swishing around in his head, feet padding on the pavement. He can’t keep his eyes still; they roll around in their sockets and send soaring visions of stars flying and diving into his mind. He feels heavy, trapped in his mortal body, feels his clothes clutching to him, his tongue in his mouth lying like a sick lump, his teeth like gritty pebbles. He feels the blood pumping in his neck, throbbing in his eyeballs, his nose all greasy and filled with itchy hairs and crumbs, his every breath a labour.

  Easy there, he tells himself. He stands in the empty parking lot and listens a minute: nothing but the silence of the night. The moon shines bright—it don’t care. The crickets chirp in the weeds and from far off, the highway rumbles. Easy there. His heart pumps away opening and closing in his chest like a little baby’s fist—all for what? To go down with all the other mortified stiffs in the graveyard. Money runs like blood through the fingers, then no more—empty hands in a casket—can’t take nothin’ with ya anyhow. He lurches and stumbles in the parking lot like an old ship listing, runs his hand over his sweaty brow to calm the murky commotion in his head.

  Ah, fuck, his guts finely pickled by eight sweet beers, forty-five years which have manhandled and mangled the flesh into a trim and disciplined machine, soft in the middle, muscles pummelled and flattened into grim serviceability, the stringy sinews and tendons of the neck rigidified, poised, primed for action, despite the lumpy fat collecting on his belly and underneath his upper arms. The slow dissipation of resolve, the numbing of his appetite, the heart hunched into a stubbornness which has forgotten its purpose. A recalcitrant and rebellious machine but a machine nonetheless, collapsing in slow motion, creaking and shivering, sometimes a fist or a lonesome bone slashing out, a word or a cry, for though the soul’s been duly salted with bitterness, the eye dulled by the metallic creed of the stoic, still an unnameable hunger won’t be satisfied or stilled; in fact grows keener, sharpening its pangs upon the grindstone of each passing moment.

  He stumbles about, fumbles at his fly, pulls out his penis and pisses on the tire of his truck—the hiss of it against the rubber, bubbling and dribbling down into little pools on the asphalt, a pale, white mist rising off it. He belches a short, cracking burp from deep in his sodden gut. His blinking eyes look out across the parking lot as his piss crackles below.

  Mona’ll be sleeping right now, he thinks, her face laying sideways on the pillow, her eyes closed tight with little wrinkles at the sides, like she’s got a toothache or trying to solve a problem of some kind. Or maybe she’s in her chair in front of the TV, a blanket over her lap, her eyes blinking shut, her mouth going slack, her head slowly nodding down to slumber in the light blue rays—an audience bays phony laughter from the screen. Her ghostly, white hair against the back of the chair, greyed over the years, used to be jet black.

  And the two kids shut tight in their bedrooms… The same cool breeze moving soundlessly across his face, across the parking lot, across the fields softly swaying the tall grass and the weeds, lightly flowing and touching everything yet making away with nothing; the same soft breeze sifts through the screens and ruffles the curtains of their rooms in the grey night, curls and swirls about the corners of their rooms and mingles with their sleeping sighs.

  “Fuck,” he slurs aloud and climbs into his truck, roars the engine and pulls out into the quiet streets, drives past the quiet houses all dark, no lights anywhere, the lawns all bare, a tricycle or a bicycle sometimes lying like a skeleton all akimbo, a tire hanging from a tree on the end of a taut rope—might as well be on the moon—every so often a guilty cat shirking around like a shadow of itself.

  And what’s it mean to be a man anyway? he asks himself, when even in the midst of the most mundane moments of day-to-day living, the jaw must be clenched with quick, steadfast determination to stop yourself from bursting suddenly into tears for no reason? And who will hear a man cry in the solitude of his pain, when he trudges through his days in a force field of inexplicable sullen anger, as he bears no exceptional scar nor tragedy to speak of, merely that his lot chafes him, merely that he is obstinate and disagreeable because life strikes him as such?

  He turns off down the highway and motors past the bright, neon signs blinking like idiot children waving to no one, and out past the last motel, he spies at the limit of his headlight ray a familiar cloaked figure ambling on in the gravel. “Shit,” he mutters to himself, and pulls the truck onto the shoulder of the road.

  “Wanna ride?” he slurs, opening the passenger door, and Happy Henry runs bustling up with his suitcases.

  “Yes! Yessir! Thank you, sir!” he simpers awkwardly fumbling with the cases as he clambers into the cab.

  “Throw ’em in the back,” commands Buzz, and Happy Henry plunks them in and settles up beside Buzz, slamming the door.

  “Thank you, sir!” says Happy Henry, but Buzz just sits there driving, squinting a bit, his mouth turned down and moving a bit like he’s chewing on something.

  “Where ya goin’?” he asks Henry.

  “Oh! To the Wigford Church,” says Henry. “I can get out at the tenth line, though,” and with a mechanical, robotic action, Henry’s right arm delves into his overcoat pocket and comes up with one of his pamphlets.

  “Perhaps you would be interested in…” Henry begins, passing the pamphlet over to Buzz.

  Buzz turns quickly to him and shouts, “Put that away! If you’re gonna start that bullshit ya can get out right now!” A look of shock comes over Henry’s face, then like a chastened child he bows his head and replaces the tract in his coat.

  “Jee-sus CHRIST!” Buzz mutters disgustedly. “What in hell, ya went through all that shit with me before,” he grumbles, frowning sourly at the road. “What in hell ya tryin’ to do, Henry, walkin’ the roads all day and all night long, talkin’ about God and heaven all the time? Nobody’s interested in that shit, for Christ’s sake, can’t you even see that?”

  “But I’m WITNESSIN’, Buzz!” says Happy Henry. “For so it is written in the bible that we should spread the good news of the Lord’s washin’ away of all sin in the blood of the lamb, for so it is written in the last days there shall be much weepin’… an’… an’ gnashing of teeth, but the Lord has overcome the world… an’… an’… taketh us up to the eternal rest of the righteous unto heaven!” Henry stutters it all out, his eyes wide in the dark truck.

  “Aw, SHIT,” grunts Buzz, grimacing with distaste. He drives in silence. Ah well, he’s just a half-wit, he thinks to himself, a harmless nitwit, and Happy Henry wonders br
iefly in his mind why Buzz smells so strangely and seems to slur his words in such a peculiar manner. Buzz relaxes a bit and lights up a cigarette as he drives, the first gusts of the smoke into his lungs almost sickening him, making his brain lurch a bit, then fading—Easy there. Happy Henry at his side sits blinking, his rabbit lips murmuring away to himself, and finally he can resist no longer.

  “An’ we must simply receive Lord Jesus Christ as our saviour in order that all sins are washed away and forgiven and we may rest eternally in paradise!” he blurts, his eyeballs darting wildly from side to side, his eyebrows dancing up and down on his forehead.

  “Shit,” Buzz sighs to himself. “So what’s in paradise, Henry, why we all wanna go to paradise, anyhow?” he asks with tired resignation.

  “Oh, in paradise all is whiteness and gold and purity,” replies Happy Henry. “We shall no longer weep nor hunger nor toil,” he explains.

  “Hm, I see,” says Buzz meditatively. “And the streets up there’re paved in gold, is what I heard—that true?”

  “Um… um… the streets, yes, paved in gold,” Henry answers, straining a bit, “and the Lord and all his angels finely arrayed.”

  “I see,” says Buzz. “Ya say we don’t toil up in heaven—where do we get our money from then?”

  Happy Henry stutters a bit then closes his eyes tight, tilting his head back and pressing his hands together on his lap. “We… we get our money from the Lord,” he says.

  “Well,” says Buzz, “if we don’t hunger then we don’t have to eat. What do we need money for, then?” he asks.

  “Um…um…” says Henry, shutting his eyes even tighter, wrinkling his brow.

  “And where in hell do we live up in heaven, Henry?” asks Buzz. “Do we all just wander around on the clouds all the time together, or do we have our own houses or what? Do we have any damn privacy at ALL?”

  Happy Henry gasps, then his eyes pop open. “We all live in mansions! It is written that in my Father’s house there are many mansions,” he concludes proudly.

  “Oh, MANsions, eh?” says Buzz. “Well, that don’t sound too bad. Mansions—and what’re these mansions made of, Henry? Are they made of stone or wood or what?”

  “Um… um…” says Henry, rubbing his hands together worriedly.

  “Well, they’d be made of gold, wouldn’t they, Henry?” Buzz suggests. “If the damn streets that everybody walks on are made of gold, you’d think the bloody MANSIONS would at least be made of gold too, wouldn’t ya?”

  “Um… YES—in golden mansions in heaven,” says Henry, nodding his head with relief. He continues nodding, whispering to himself.

  “Well, that sounds pretty damn good,” muses Buzz. “Mansions of gold, pretty damn good. But it seems to me that everybody’s mansion must be pretty much the same up there in heaven, eh? I mean, they’d hafta be, or does some people have bigger mansions than others, or smaller, or does everyone get treated equal-like, or what?”

  “Um… um… we are all equal in the eyes of the Lord!” Henry proclaims.

  “Well then,” says Buzz, “you’re sayin’ that the president or the chief of police don’t maybe get a bit bigger mansion in heaven than anyone else, maybe? No? Not at all? Well how ’bout this, Henry, what if I got up in heaven and wanted to build an addition on my mansion, or wanted to put flower boxes in all the windows, would I be able to do that? Would that be allowed?”

  Henry blinks his eyes in puzzlement and stares out the window.

  “I can’t see as how it could be,” Buzz says at length. “Allowed, I mean. I mean, if everyone gets treated equal, seems like everybody’d have to live in identical mansions. Don’t think I’d like that, Henry, to live in the exact same mansion as everyone else, even if it IS a gold mansion.” He pauses a moment, considering the road. “I mean, if ya can’t even put a friggin’ FLOWER BOX on it.”

  Henry sits thoroughly perplexed, the bleary lights of the night smearing themselves across the windows as they whisk past. Buzz flexes his jaw with drunken smugness as he drives.

  “Tell ya one thing though Henry, tell ya one thing,” he says reflectively. “If what you’re sayin’ is true, that all ya have to do is open up yer arms and accept Jesus and all yer sins are washed away…”

  “By the blood of the lamb!” interjects Henry. “Washed away and forgiven by the grace of the Lord!” he cries, leaning across the seat with fresh fervour causing his eyes to flash like pearls in the dashboard light.

  “Yeah,” says Buzz. “Well if that’s true, that they’re all washed away and forgiven, but really washed away without a speck left, as if they never happened in the first place, and all memory scrubbed out, erased… all that would really be somethin’. And really forgiven, too, as if somethin’ could open wide enough in this world to honestly, heartily forgive the worst, shittiest, lowdown sin—and to forget it too, wash it away, disappeared back beyond the past.” His right hand is off the wheel now, gesturing, vaguely grasping a bit in front of his face, his eyes squinting out onto the road with intense concentration. “Yeah, that would REALLY be somethin’ else, no shit.”

  His intoxicated mind running down all the jagged cruelties seen and unseen, the murderous thoughts and intentions swept under the rug, all the little incidents of just pure, unadulterated meanness and the sinister, burning, white flames of the countless callous slaps across the face, from the cat swung around by its tail in the backyard to the pleading cry heard muffled over his shoulder as he slammed unheedingly out through the swinging screen door—his heart boiling over with an acidic guilt that only made him madder and more determined to do it—and his mind astonished because he really regretted so little.

  “Oh yeah, that would be somethin’, somethin’ else,” Buzz says, nodding grimly, pausing as he considers the idea. “’Fact, it almost wouldn’t seem right, somehow. But if what you’re sayin’ is true, well, that’d be somethin’ sensational, jus’ what the doctor ordered for somethin’ like me.”

  He looks over appraisingly at Henry. Happy Henry shifts in his seat—and is just about to burst out with how the good Lord knows we are all sinners and if only we declare this unto Him and ask Him in our hearts—when Buzz says, “’Cause ya know what I am, Henry?” He looks stoically out at the darkened countryside whizzing past and nods once, decisively, like a man facing up to hard facts and biting down on them, hard. “I’m what they call a bad bastard—the black sheep of the family. I’m a tough, old, bastard,” he says solemnly and slowly.

  Happy Henry blinks over at him.

  “I don’t care who knows it and I don’t care what no one thinks,” says Buzz. “Never did. I like to go out and drink and have a good time and that’s what I do. I like to go out an’ I like to get pissed up,” he says, his voice turning a bit soft, his face taking on a solemn cast, his eyes narrowing, his head slowly nodding to confirm what he’s saying.

  “I got a wife and I got two kids an’ I don’t suspect there was ever a time I had a few minutes free when I didn’t use it to go out an’ get drunk, or didn’t wanna use it to get drunk.” His eyes dart over to Henry.

  “Know what I’m sayin’? Don’t sound too good, eh? ’Cause I’m a tough old bastard is what I am, an’ I ain’t gonna pretend, an’ I ain’t gonna put on any phony face for nobody—like some do—AND I can beat the Christ of anyone who’s got an argument with it, all right?” he says, his voice rising, looking over at Happy Henry with an angry, wounded flash in his eyes.

  Henry looks over, his brow furrowed with concern. He’s worried because he doesn’t like to hear so many cuss words used all at once, but his tiny worries and concerns are forgotten as the good news come bursting through them like a bright, sparkling, blue and white, excited fountain. “Yes, but Lord Jesus Christ died that your sins may be forgiven and you be washed clean white as the snow!” he pipes up.

  Buzz is deeply and sullenly pissed off now, gripey and cantankerous.
Henry’s lisping, twittering voice annoys him.

  “If only your heart is dedicated unto Him… an’… an’… washed clean by the blood of the lamb.”

  Buzz emanates a baleful silence. “Dedicate yer heart, eh?” he grunts after a bit, flicking his ash through the little vent window by his hand.

  “Yes, and to accept Him as your Lord and personal saviour,” beams Henry.

  “Huh,” mutters Buzz, “an’ that’s all it takes, eh, jus’ to let him in and everything is washed clean and white and right down the drain.”

  “Yes!” says Henry, his mouth working like a little squirrel chewing an acorn. “To admit you are a sinner and surrender to His mercy!”

  “Humph,” says Buzz. “An’ it don’t matter what you done or how long you done it for, jus’ all gets swallowed up and forgotten.”

  Happy Henry nods excitedly. “Yes! You simply must repent of your sins and He will heal thee and bring you into His grace!”

  Buzz slowly turns this over in his mind. “Well, that sounds pretty damn good,” he says gruffly, and is silent for a moment, in deep thought. “An’ you’re sayin’ it don’t matter when I come to him, you’re sayin’ I could do it now or tomorrow or maybe twenty years from now and he’d still hafta accept me, still hafta look upon my sins and wash ’em out an’ take a hold my hand and lift me right up to heaven—that what you’re sayin’?”

  “Yes! Yes!” says Happy Henry. “O great is the glory of the Lord!” he cries, shivering a bit.

  “An even… even… if I lived till I was ninety-five years old and I was a mean, dirty, lowdown bastard all the while—while meantime someone else lived their whole life prayin’ an’ goin’ to church an’ livin’ by all the rules, never doin’ a thing wrong, livin’ for others and never givin’ a thought to themselves while I never gave a thought to anythin’ BUT myself—yer sayin’ if I was ninety-five an’ on my deathbed, just before I died, if I gave my heart to Jesus, right there on my deathbed the minute before I died, he’d forgive everything an’ I’d go up into heaven and be saved just as much as the other guy who never did nothin’ wrong at all with no difference?”