I walked off the practice field, pulled the door of my truck closed, cranked her up, and headed for the hospital. As I was driving over the old tracks, I glanced back across the field and spotted Russell. He had rejoined the scrimmage, tackled the running back, and was now holding both the ball and the running back’s helmet. The running back lay on his back, dazed, shaking his head, surrounded by three trainers.
Minutes later, I caught myself humming.
chapter sixteen
I DISMISSED CLASS AMID A PUDDLE OF AFTERNOON sweat. It was now almost October, but the lazy summer haze was hanging around, winning the battle against the cooler breezes that made a strong charge in the evening, but beat a retreat during the day. With every class, I kept threatening to buy a window unit and blow some a/c into this place. If I did, I’d bet my truck that the introduction of that window unit would change the seating chart. All my kids would be crowding around that thing—even Koy.
On her way out the door, Amanda glanced at my arm, looked down her nose, and shook her head. “You better let me clean that again.” She left without another word.
I rolled down my sleeve, stuffed my hand in my pocket, and began packing my bag. As I was leaving, I almost stumbled over Koy, who was still seated. She had her hands folded in front of her mouth and looked as though she wanted to say something. I decided to help her out.
“You were quiet in class today.”
“I’m quiet every day.”
“True.” I smiled and waited for her to say something else. I wasn’t going to drag it out of her.
“Professuh.” She lifted her book bag into her lap. “I write a lot, and, uh, I was wondering if maybe you’d look at this for me. Tell me whether you think it’s any good.”
I walked over and leaned against the desk next to hers. “Sure, I’ll look at it, but don’t take me as the sole measure for whether or not it’s any good. I may say it’s great when others think not. And I may say it stinks when it doesn’t. I’m just one opinion, and unfortunately, I like what I like. Know what I mean?”
“Yeah, me too.” Koy reached into her bag and pulled out a well-worn journal. This book had seen some time. She handed me the journal reluctantly and walked out of the room.
The pages were worn, tattered, and on them she had written thousands of words. I slid it into my backpack and turned to leave. When I did, I noticed Koy standing back in the doorway.
She turned slowly, pointing at the journal, and said, “Professuh, that’s . . . that’s me in there.” She looked away, then turned and faced me. Her right hand came slowly up to her face and removed her glasses. Beautiful green eyes stared out at me. An emerald surprise.
Why would someone try so hard to hide something so beautiful?
She stepped forward, took a deep breath, and said, “Can we keep me between you and me?”
“Koy.” I reached into my backpack and pulled out the journal. “If you’re asking me whether or not I will keep what I read in this journal inside me and between us, the answer is yes. Absolutely. But trust? Trust is another matter. It’s a choice. It’s earned. It’s something I don’t do with everybody. Am I trustworthy? You have to decide that. Not me. It’s your call. And if you ask me to read this journal, you’re trusting me.”
She stood motionless a minute, looked at the floor, glanced down the hall, put her glasses back on, tugged at her handbag, then walked over to me, grabbed the journal out of my hand, and left without a word.
Maybe I was too hard. Maybe not. Who knows? I do know this: most people, myself included, are at their most vulnerable in a journal. They pour it all out. Sometimes a journal is the only ear that will listen, or at least the only one that you want to talk to. So we talk until our hand can write no more and then, spent, we fall off to sleep or go to class or get back to work or whatever it was that we were escaping from in the first place.
I WENT HOME, PIDDLED AROUND THE HOUSE, AND THEN decided I’d drive to the hospital after the late shift had settled down. I was surprised when I found myself instead curled up on my front-porch swing, watching the sunrise light the corn tassels. Last thing I remembered was watching the wind make waves out of the corn rows.
Squinting in the morning sun, I saw that on the floor below me lay Koy’s journal with a note on top of it.
Professor, I didn’t want to wake you. Sorry about yesterday. Please read. Koy.
I percolated some Maxwell House, returned to the swing with a steaming cup, resisted a tug to get to the hospital, and started on page one.
By noon I had read the whole thing. Mostly poetry and short vignettes. Scenes of her life. No beginning. No ending. Snapshots absent a context.
When I finished, I had one question: why in the world was this girl in my class? Koy was good. I’m not talking about “she has good style” or even “control of the English language.” Koy had a gift. The real deal.
Sitting there on my porch, holding that girl’s mind and heart in my hand, I could only think of two real possibilities. Either she was a gifted genius unchallenged by school, sort of a Bill Gates with a pen, or something had happened to her. Something violent and sudden had taken away the tenderness and replaced it with the ice-queen demeanor and sunglasses.
What I held in my hand reminded me of a feeling that I had had several times in grammar school and rarely since. It was that awe mixed with incredulity that I got in Ms. Edward’s music class while studying Mozart. Now I had it with Koy. How could someone so young produce something so fine and grown-up?
I put the journal down and sipped my coffee, which had long since grown cold. It was horrible. Maggie loved cold coffee. She used to pour a cup in the morning, let it sit a few hours, and then pick it up just before lunch. Sort of a midday caffeine hit. I never did figure that out. Why would anyone purposefully drink cold coffee when she could have it hot? I sniffed the top again, realized it had sat dormant for more than three hours, brought it to my lips, and sipped again curiously. The cold dregs swirled around my tongue and fell down my throat. I noticed a different taste and once again felt the cold hammer of loneliness slam me against the porch.
THE THERMOMETER OUTSIDE READ NINETY-EIGHT DEGREES, and not a single cloud dotted the clear blue sky. I walked through the hospital doors wearing a long-sleeved black T-shirt, Blue at my heels. All was quiet. Maggie lay in her room, a solemn sleeping beauty. Someone had recently brushed her hair and painted her fingernails. I checked her feet to see if they were cold and noticed that the same person had painted her toenails as well.
Maggie always slept wearing socks. She hated cold feet. Without them she put her feet on my back or stomach, depending on which side I happened to be sleeping at the moment. Blue licked her feet, rubbed his cold nose against her fingers, sniffed her hair, and lay down at the foot of her bed.
Maggie looked as though she were sleeping. Her expression didn’t mirror the doctor’s dooming comments about “permanent damage.” About “never waking.” We were now through the 50 percent range and well into the 25 percent chance of recovery. A few days ago, he shook his head and said, “Dylan, I’m just being honest. Prepare yourself.”
But she didn’t look like what her chart said she was. She looked like my wife on Saturday morning. She looked like she was about to wake up and float with me downriver. I walked into the room, picked up her chart out of the sleeve on the end of her bed, read the doctor’s illegible comments, opened the window, pitched it as far as I could, and watched it flail into the reflection pond three floors below. They don’t bar the windows on the rooms of vegetables. Not much danger of their jumping out.
I kissed her forehead. She was warm. She smelled like Maggie. I whispered, “Hey, Maggs, it’s me,” and sat down. She didn’t move. I didn’t expect her to. It’s just that every time in our life that I whispered, “Hey, Maggs,” kissed her forehead, and put her coffee on the table next to the bed, she woke up, turned on her side, put her head in my lap, took a deep breath, and said, “What do you want to do today?”
/> Maggie was a pretty intense sleeper. Sometimes I’d get up in the middle of the night, and her hand would be sitting upright on her forehead as though she were thinking or had forgotten something. Whatever she was thinking about, whatever she had forgotten, it had wrinkled the skin between her eyes above her nose. I’d lean over, pull her hand down to her side, kiss her gently, and place my hand on her forehead. She’d relax. The skin would ease, go soft, and the wrinkle would disappear. When I didn’t wake up, and she spent most of the night in that tense wrinkle, she’d wake and her neck would be screaming with pain. I knew it was only evidence of her depth. Maggie is a simple complexity. A paradox. Meaning between extremes.
I put my head down next to Maggie’s and breathed. It was the first time in our married life that she let me share the same pillow. I wanted to smell her. Hear her breathe. Listen to her feet shuffle under the sheets. I wanted to be with my wife.
I’m not talking about the sexual thing. God knows I could. I’m a man. This is my wife. I love her. But after the delivery, the hemorrhage, the blood, and what the doctors had to do, even if she woke right this minute, it would be months before that was physically an option. And then there’s the emotional aspect. Maggie’s strong, but not that strong.
No, I’m talking about that sweet thing that happens when you open your eyes and realize in the dim daybreak of dawn that your wife has nudged her head next to yours and that you’re now breathing air she breathed. That sweet thing that happens when you realize this and then close your eyes and feel that soft rush of her breath tickle your eyelashes. The sweet thing that happens when, after feeling that soft rush, you doze, each breathing parts of the other’s air.
About dark, long after my stomach started growling, Amanda walked in the door, pulling a cart.
Blue looked up from the floor and perked his ears.
“Hello, Professor. Hello, Miss Maggie. Hello, Blue.” She stopped next to me, grabbed my left arm, and started pulling back the sleeve of my T-shirt. I winced and jerked it back, but Amanda would have none of that. “Professor, if you don’t give me that arm, I’m calling in the doctor, a couple of really big nurses, and your deputy friend. So we can either do this the easy way, or we can do it your way.”
I extended my arm.
My T-shirt was stuck to my flesh. Small circles of pus and serum seeped through the fibers of my shirt. Amanda took my wrist in her hand and started methodically cutting and peeling the shirt away. After about the third pull, I realized how much it hurt. My arm was raw meat.
While I winced, Amanda spoke to Maggie. “Now, Miss Maggie, don’t worry. I’m taking good care of this arm until you get to where you can. At least when he’s in this hospital. I can’t speak for him outside of here, but in this hospital, I’ll take good care of him. We need to get his arm healed up. From what I can tell, he’s not real good at taking care of himself.” Amanda looked at me. “He keeps picking at this thing like he’s trying to get rid of something.” She turned to Maggie again. “So it would help us all out if you’d just go ahead and wake up before this arm gets to where he can’t use it anymore.”
She finished bandaging my arm, held out her hand, and said, “Swallow this.”
Shortly thereafter, I dozed off. About two in the morning, Amos tapped me on the shoulder and said, “D.S., let’s go get some coffee.”
Blue licked my ankle as I wiped my eyes and cleared the drool from my chin. I was groggy, but whatever Amanda had given me had worked. I kissed Maggs and put my hand on her forehead.
“See you tomorrow. Thanks for letting me share your pillow. I promise, if you wake up, you’ll never have to do it again.”
Amos and I walked out of the hospital and crossed the street to the all-night diner. It used to be a Waffle House that had long since gone out of business. Now the sign above the door read “Al’s Diner, Open 24 Hours.” I’ve never been there when Al wasn’t working the grill. When that guy slept, I’ll never know.
Amos and I sat down and ordered coffee, and I placed three orders for scrambled eggs.
“How is she?”
“Same.”
“What’s this business with your arm?”
“Huh?”
“I said, why do you keep doing whatever you’re doing to your arm?”
“Oh. I just goofed it up working in the pasture.”
“That’s not what your nurse said.”
“Yeah? What does she know? She wasn’t there.”
“She says that every time she sees you it’s worse, and now you’re trying to cover it up. That’s why she’s bandaged it like that. So you can’t make it any worse.”
“Amos, it’s three in the morning. Can we talk about something else?”
“How’s class?” he said without a break.
I looked up. “Shouldn’t you be home sleeping or working or something?”
“I am working.”
“My tax dollars are paying you for this time?”
“How’s class?”
“You don’t quit, do you?”
“Not when it comes to you.” Amos smiled, his white teeth shining in the dim light of the diner.
I rubbed my eyes. “It’s probably a good thing too.”
“Have you figured it out yet?”
“Figured out what?”
“Amanda.”
“Amos, would you quit talking in code? It’s about three hours past my ability to translate.”
“Have you figured out Amanda Lovett?”
“What’s there to figure? I’ve got an attractive, kind, pregnant preacher’s daughter sitting in the front row of my class, and she also happens to be my wife’s nurse. Yes, I’ve got that figured pretty well.”
“Yeah, but have you figured how that attractive, kind, sweet, unmarried daughter-of-a-preacher got pregnant in the first place?”
“No. I haven’t spent much time on that.”
“You probably thought she was just another statistic.”
I rubbed my eyes and stared out the diner window. “Amos, please come to a point. Just about any point will do.”
“Six months ago, Amanda Lovett was kidnapped, driven seven miles from town, and tied to a tree deep in the Salkehatchie. She was then raped by at least two men, maybe more. Six days later, they dumped her on her daddy’s lawn. You need me to draw you a picture?”
That was picture enough. “No, I got it.”
“That girl, the same girl that bandages your arm, brushes your wife’s hair, leaves a towel for Blue, and brings you orange juice in the morning, was beat up and left for dead. She was also impregnated.” Amos sat back. “This is a small town, and word travels fast, but you Styleses have a tendency to keep to yourselves. Always have. Now . . . ” Amos pointed his toothpick at me. “You want the answer to your next question?”
“Yes.”
“Well.” He tongued the toothpick to the other side of his mouth. “I could tell you, but you need to hear it from her. Ask her sometime. ”
“Amos, did you bring me to this one-tooth establishment to tell me this?”
“Yup.”
“Why?”
“’Cause you need to hear that there are folks in this world who got lives just as bad as yours. Life ain’t fair, and welcome to earth.”
“Thanks. I feel much better just knowing that.”
I paid for the coffee and eggs, and Blue and I left Amos talking with Al. When I cranked my truck, Garth was singing a duet with Martina, but I turned it off and rode home in silence, except for the rhythmic sound of a nail in my tire hitting the blacktop.
chapter seventeen
FRIDAY NIGHT WAS THE BIGGEST GAME OF THE year, according to Marvin. This was “The Rivalry.” Every school has a nemesis, and Digs’s was South Carolina Junior College.
Blue and I walked up to the fence next to the track and stood parallel with the goal line. The bleachers were filled with kids, and because dogs make some folks nervous, I put a leash on Blue. He looked at me as if I had lost my mind.
r /> “Sorry, pal. It’s just for an hour or so.”
I leaned against the fence and looked up at the clock. It was the third quarter, and Digs was beating SCJC by a touchdown, 27-20. From what I had heard in the classroom, Digs had speed and a decent quarterback, SCJC had a running back named Thumper, and both teams had defense.
The Digger defense was on the field, and Russell was lined up on the far side as defensive tackle. SCJC snapped the ball, and the quarterback rolled left—to Russell’s side of the field. Russell ran over the offensive tackle and sacked the quarterback for what would have been a twelve-yard loss had the quarterback not fumbled the ball.
Players scrambled everywhere trying to pick up the pigskin. The stands erupted again in a wave of arms and a roar of penny-filled milk jugs. Out of the heap, Marvin came up with the ball and began running down my side of the field. His arms and feet were a blur. When he passed me, his face was a picture of gums, teeth, and unadulterated joy. He crossed the goal line twelve yards ahead of the nearest player, spiked the ball, and did some dance I had never before seen. Then Russell picked him up and they, and the rest of the defense, paraded to the bench. Score: 33-20.
I was saying something to myself about fast feet when I heard, “Hey there, Professor.”
I didn’t need to look. The seductive voice gave her away. I turned and said, “What? No sunglasses tonight?”
Koy reached up and pulled her sunglasses down from their perch atop her head. “How’s that?” she said.
“Much better. I almost didn’t recognize you.”
Digs kicked off and tackled SCJC on about the twenty-two.
“So, what are you doing here?” Koy asked.
“Watching a football game,” I said, pointing to the field.
“Don’t most people do that from the stands?”
“Yeah, but I thought it might be too much for Blue. You know—all the noise.”