The concern in his voice created a tinge of green inside me.
I pushed it away and said, “It’s his arm. It ain’t healed
proper.”
Daddy bent down, staring at the part exposed above the
cast, and without a word he hurried back outside and returned with a saw.
He said, “I got to get that cast off.”
Merritt said, “It hurts bad, worse than when I broke it.”
Daddy said, “You tell me soon as you feel anything coming
through against your skin, okay?”
Merritt nodded. Daddy had him turn it so his hand was
palm up. He placed his own hand on top to brace it, and
began sawing. Puffs of white powder fell, dusting the table
and the floor. Merritt tried not to look. Daddy worked as fast as he could, and within a minute, Merritt held up a finger
to indicate he’d felt it. Daddy moved down some, and after
a few minutes, Merritt signaled him again. Daddy focused
on the area covering the elbow where it was thicker. It took longer, and sweat dripped off his forehead, while Merritt tried not to make any noise. He unexpectedly flinched, and Daddy
stopped. Wiggling the fingers of each hand between the cast
and Merritt’s arm, he began pulling in opposite directions,
like he was splitting a melon open. It took a couple of at-
tempts and the pain from the pressure caused Merritt to lose that high color from the fever. The cast cracked open and his arm was exposed. I smacked my hand over my mouth and
nose as I glimpsed his arm. I had to walk away. I went to the sink and stared out the window. It wouldn’t never be the same again.
Daddy said, “Jesus,” while Merritt cried.
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Chapter 10
Merritt came home and it was all I could do to look at him.
Eyes dull and lackluster, it was evident he’d lost more than his arm. He would have to get used to the idea of never pitching ball again, because he was going to end up with a prosthesis at some point and would have to spend time learning how
to manage that. While Aubrey’s daddy always preached how
shine was evil, made fools of men, and caused nothing but
trouble, he’d once said the only thing it was good for was as a disinfectant. That proved not to be true in Merritt’s case. He told me he tried to spill a little liquor down inside the cast, feeling certain his arm was getting infected. It burned so bad, he was pretty sure he’d passed out, and then it got worse instead of better.
Good for nothing is what it’s good for.
He moved about the house as if in a fog, his world shrunk
to the living room, kitchen, and his bedroom. We watched
him try to eat left-handed, drink left-handed, do for himself, and it was hard. I anticipated the moment he would blame
Daddy, grow angry at being crippled, tell him he’d all but
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ruined his life, but he didn’t. Daddy hadn’t said much since he’d gone to get him. Every now and then he’d stare at Merritt’s empty sleeve, folded up and pinned to his shirt. If Daddy made eye contact with me, he’d quickly turn his attention to the TV or to the newspaper. It was the closest thing to contri-tion I’d ever seen, and I wasn’t sure you could call it that. He’d dropped the subject of what happened at Boomer. He didn’t
talk anymore about going to see some agent.
I began to think what happened to Merritt mattered un-
til one morning shortly after he’d come home Daddy got to
talking about buying the materials to replace the still. Merritt sat opposite him at the kitchen table, and I waited for him to point to his missing limb, to tell Daddy he wasn’t inclined to listen to that garbage anymore. Instead, they conversed like it was any other day with Merritt asking him how big the new
still might be, and what it would turn out. Daddy told a story about Granddaddy Sasser building a new still, how he’d made
it bigger. Merritt absorbed every word, and said once he got his new arm he’d get back to shine making again.
I was dumbfounded. Where was his rage?
Merritt’s infection was called osteomyelitis. It had poisoned his arm, traveling through his blood, infecting the tissues.
Every time I watched him struggle to do the simplest tasks, it brought back what happened to Mama, reminded me of that
brokenness inside my own self. Listening to them talk about a new still, and getting back to making shine was as if the both of them had something like that infection seeping through
their veins, filling every crevice and inhabiting their thoughts like a disease.
I was glad I had the excuse of school so I could get out of
the house. I waited for the bus, and moments later it climbed around the curve, and stopped with a jolt. The door swung
open with a whoosh and I climbed on. I searched for Aubrey,
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Knowles and Denise Bradford. I leaned against the pole up
near the front. Even the bus driver ignored me now.
Someone said, “Jessie!”
It was Merritt’s buddy Curt Miller, waving a hand, indicat-
ing for me to come to the back and sit with him. Surprised, I moved down the aisle and lowered myself into the seat.
“Thanks, Curt.”
He said, “I only wanted to know how Merritt was doing.”
I understood the seat was a onetime offer. He didn’t have
to explain. I told him about Merritt, and by the time the bus got to the school he’d gone to staring out the window, looking glum.
We stood, and when the aisle had cleared enough for me to
get off, he said, “Well, let him know I asked, and that I said hey.”
“I will.”
It only stung a little when I overheard him reassuring Abel,
“Hell no, she ain’t sitting with me again. I ain’t stupid.”
I hurried so I didn’t have to hear more. The rest of the day was the usual dreary rotation of classes, and still no sign of Aubrey. Lunch came, and I sat outside on the brick wall with no expectations. Minutes later, footsteps approached from behind me, but I didn’t bother to turn and was surprised when
it was her.
She came around to face me and said, “Hey. Gosh, that
skirt looks nice.”
I went back to studying my oxfords. I wished I hadn’t cho-
sen to wear something she’d given me. I wished I’d thrown
all of it out. Before, I’d have thanked her for the compliment, and would have reiterated my appreciation. Before seemed
like a long time ago.
She said, “It sure is terrible what all’s happened to Merritt.”
I said, “Is that what you came over here to say, or are you
really nosing about because of the still?”
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She was about to sit beside me, and my comment stopped her.
She stepped back instead, and said, “What?”
“You know what I’m talking about.”
She shook her head. “No, I don’t.”
I mumbled a couple words under my breath that would
have turned her preacher daddy’s ears inside out.
Louder, I said, “You can’t tell me you didn’t tell Zeb what
I was going to do, and for all I know, Willie too. One of our stills been busted all to hell and I got blamed
for it.”
Aubrey’s eyebrows went up and she said, “Well, from all
I’ve ever heard out of you, I thought that would make you
happy. I mean, ain’t it what you wanted? What do you care if it’s gone?”
“I don’t care, but I said not to say nothing and you did
anyway.”
“Uh-uh. I didn’t tell nobody what you said. Why would I
do that?”
She fidgeted with her watch, not making eye contact. I was
right, and my silence told her I thought so.
She threw her hands up and said, “Fine, think what you
want.”
“I will.”
She got up to leave, and then said, “Here comes Willie.
Why don’t you ask him yourself since you know everything!”
He walked fast across the lawn and I wanted to run toward
the school doors. Across the grass other students sat calmly eating, studying with their books set in front of them, the sun warming their backs, enjoying their day.
Aubrey smiled big, and waved, “Hey, Willie!,” and then
she leaned in and said, “Go on. Ask him.”
I wasn’t about to talk to Willie Murry. I got up, my arms
folded across my middle, fingers gripping my waist. His gaze skimmed past Aubrey, who’d pinned her eyes on him the moment he appeared. She giggled in a way I’d never heard be-
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fore, a silly little singsong noise like someone practicing scales on a piano. She had it bad, a severe crush. I was sorry for her, and offended at the same time. He stopped by her side, and I moved back by several feet.
He said, “Well, if it ain’t Jessie Sasser of them famous Sassers up on Shine Mountain. So they say.”
I’d never talked to any Murry and I wasn’t about to start
now. His hair was slicked back, and he wore rolled-up dun-
garees, a less than white T-shirt, and Wearmasters, the leather creased and wrinkled as an old man’s face.
He said, “Heard you don’t take kindly to the family do-
ings.”
Aubrey, put out by the fact Willie was ignoring her alto-
gether, wasn’t paying attention to a word he said as she thrust her chest out and postured in other ways she thought might
look appealing. Aubrey’s common decency had left, and she
had no idea he’d confirmed what I’d suspected. I moved a
little to the right so I could leave, but Willie sidestepped and blocked my way.
He rubbed a couple of fingers over a stubbly chin, and said,
“Could’ve sworn somebody said something about some un-
fortunate mishap on Lore Mountain Road a few weeks back.”
I moved again, and so did he while Aubrey continued to
posture dramatically.
She finally poked out her lip when it got her nowhere, and
said, “Willie, Jessie wants to go.”
“She can go. Anytime she wants.”
I moved, but he blocked me again.
Aubrey’s annoyance showed in the way she said his name.
“Wil-lie, come on, quit messing around. We only got five minutes. Let’s go sit in your car.”
She spun around and marched off without saying another
word, black hair swinging back and forth, her back rigid.
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in his expression when he looked back at me, she’d run like
I wanted to do. He had hateful eyes that showed nothing be-
cause there was nothing in him, only pure meanness.
“Well, go on, Jessie Sasser. Permission granted.”
He bent slightly at the waist and waved his arm, ushering
me forward. Moving by him was like edging along a narrow,
steep path and one wrong move would send you tumbling
over a rocky cliff. It didn’t help that he laughed, like he knew I was afraid, and the sound crawled up my back and into my
head, making it ache. I rushed toward the school, lurching
along like my legs were having spasms. Once I was inside,
and out of sight, I dashed down the hall as the bell rang for fifth period to begin. I passed the small nurse’s room as Mrs.
Brewer came out.
She saw me and said, “Sasser. Good timing. Git yerself in
here.”
I had a couple minutes to get to class, so I obeyed, remem-
bering the look on her face days ago.
Inside her tiny office, where everything was painted white
and smelled like alcohol, she said, “You been drinking that
tea?”
“Yes’m.”
“You need more?”
“I don’t want you to go to no trouble on account of me.”
“Hmph. Trouble is what you just had for lunch. Tea ain’t
trouble.”
I didn’t know she’d seen me and Willie Murry.
“Yes’m.”
“Heard about yer brother. Wished I’d a known. Could a
hepped him, maybe.”
She handed me a similar packet as the one before, and said,
“You need to be drinking this. It’ll help that stomach problem you got. It is yer stomach is ailing you, ain’t it?”
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Pale blue eyes pierced.
“Yes’m.”
She said, “You ettin’?”
I shifted off one foot to the other. “Some.”
“Some. Here you stand and I see yer body crying for it. I
may be old, but I see that, and I see what you ain’t able to, least not right now. You best be careful; yer gonna ruin them teeth, too.”
My teeth? I wasn’t worried about my teeth; I was worried
about how I was all soft, and pudgy.
I stared down at myself. “I’m fat.”
“Pfft. Says who? Now git. I got things to do. And drink
that tea.”
I left her office, tucking the packet of tea into my skirt
pocket. Mrs. Brewer might be ill-natured and gruff, but I was starting to think within her was a tender, soft heart.
I walked in on Merritt tending his stump. His back to me,
he didn’t know I was there. He stood at the kitchen sink, with the hot water running. He cried, and swabbed and cried some
more. It was what he said next that set a resolve in me stronger than anything I’d confronted before.
He said, “It ain’t ever gonna be right again.”
More sobbing, more words and wishes.
“I wished it never happened. I wished we could do some-
thing else.”
He was in tremendous pain, his hand shaking like that of
an old man as he tended the raw open wound. He beat on the
counter with his good hand, making the dishes in the drainer rattle while he was crying like his heart was broke. I retreated to my room and sat on the edge of my bed and thought hard
about what I’d heard and seen.
The next day when I came home after school, Sally Sue was
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gone, which meant Daddy was off running his precious liquor
to some poor soul who thought they needed it. I told Merritt I was going to Aubrey’s, but I wasn’t.
“You need anything while I’m out? That prescription need
filling again?”
; He shook his head, as he sat by the living room window,
staring out like a prisoner. My mouth set, I went out and got in the truck. I drove into Wilkesboro, and parked a couple of streets away from Main Street. I watched the comings and goings of various people, imagined what errands they might be
on. I sat with my hands resting on the steering wheel with a tremendous need to have someone listen to what I had to say, to tell me what I was about to do was a good thing, a worthy thing.
I climbed out and walked in the direction of the federal
building and post office on Main Street. There was a small
hardware store, tucked back into the alley across from it, and I stopped when it came into view, working up my nerve. A
couple of people I didn’t know walked down the sidewalk
and they certainly didn’t pay me no mind, but I felt like they knew what I was up to. What if someone I knew did spot me
and started asking questions about what I was doing in town
on a weekday afternoon? Small-town talk would require they
mention me in passing to Daddy if that happened, because
that’s how conversations went around here.
I hurried across the street, and went inside. The walls were painted pale green, and made of cinder block, and my footsteps rang out with a hollow sound, amplified by the tile floor.
The sound of rapid typing from somewhere within the build-
ing matched my pulse. Down the corridor, the line of doors
on each side were all shut. One opened and a man came out,
dressed in a white shirt and dress pants. Like Eliot Ness.
He said, “Can I help you, miss?”
I hadn’t expected it to happen like this. I’d imagined I’d
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speak to a receptionist first and she would usher me into a
small private room, anonymity intact, and I could gather my
wits about me. I grew light-headed, uneasy. My fingers curled tight as I thought about Merritt and what I’d overheard. I
imagined myself walking away without saying another word.
I could go back out into the warm sun, drive home, and keep
pretending.
I noticed his carefully combed hair, starched shirt, and tie.
He wore a look of patience, like he’d dealt with a lot of other people struggling to make a difficult decision, like he knew it wasn’t easy. I forced the words out before I could change my mind.
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