Nightwoods

  Bud felt a little glazed from trying to stay even with Lit on the uppers and beer, and he floated various lies and evasions that never rose above fair to middling. He could see where this was all heading. Lit penning him in. No way Bud could keep a string of lies consistent forever. In a few days, Lit would be right back at him, and Bud would have forgotten many details of his answers. His new lies would mismatch the old ones, which was exactly the way they trapped you. Then you went down.

  Bud said, Come on, fuck this shit. What do you care about history? I thought we were friends.

  —I guess we are, Lit said. You know a lot about me and my habits, but I don’t know much about you. Right now, I need you to be straight with me.

  Sounded kind of self-serving to Bud. Lit mainly starting to get sad about the cutoff of Benzedrine if his questions ended up leading them both to a bad place.

  —That’s what you’re needing? Bud said. Me being straight? And here I was having a good time. I thought what buddies did was ride around and tell each other lies, and drink some beers and take some pills.

  —That too. But I’m getting some pressure about you, and I need the truth.

  Bud said, Don’t pull that tired mess. I learned a long time ago, when somebody starts talking all sincere about truth, they’re usually getting ready to fuck you. Truth isn’t in your own self, and it sure isn’t in theirs. Whatever you tell me or I tell you, and call it truth, is nothing but convenient feelings and asswipe opinions. Real truth is way beyond people. Our brains weren’t tuned to get but a glimpse of it off in the distance.

  —No. That’s not the way it is.

  —Yeah, that is the way it is. People love the word, but all they use it for is like a club to beat you with. If we ever had truth in our heads, we couldn’t live with it. But because we’re friends, I’m happy to hear about your feelings and opinions, and maybe tell a few of my own, as long as we agree to call things by their right names.

  Bud shut up and stared out the window at an impossibly big moon. He kept his head straight and the panic in his stomach damped down by wondering what it would cost to bring the white-haired lawyer up here. Eat these rubes alive in court. In two hours, that old boy would burn them all a new one.

  Lit kept on driving deeper into the mountains. One beer later, he started again on places and dates and surnames. Said, What if I made a call down to the capital asking if they have a sheet on a man named John Gary Johnson? Put whatever they have in the mail. Particularly a photo. Be here in a few days. What would I find? I’m not out to get you, but don’t leave me hanging. People are talking.

  —What people? Your crazy girl with her made-up stories?

  —No.

  And then, it hit Bud through the haze. What was he so scared of? He’d gone through one trial without getting put down. And last time on the phone, the lawyer had said the State boys had their tails tucked between their legs from the beating he had administered, and they probably wouldn’t retry without new evidence. So, Luce could hold whatever opinions about him she cared to, as long as the kids couldn’t witness against him. Bud had been feeling like the surface of a pot of water right before coming to a boil. Quivering. But now he went calm and collected his suavity back.

  He said, Suppose you and the gossips around town are right about me. Your problem would be that a court of law let me go.

  Lit drove awhile, and then glanced sideways, his face perfectly blank. Half illuminated by the greenish lights of the dash, and the other half shadowed.

  He said, Not a problem for me. I’m not talking about law. No judges and juries. No lawyers. I’m talking about making somebody pay.

  Possibly, running more lines of bullshit might have served Bud’s purposes much better, but he panicked at the expression on Lit’s face. He’d seen plenty of Lit’s work. And Bud knew from bitter experience that the hand-to-hand was seldom his best choice. He couldn’t stand up to Lit unless he got awfully lucky. And luck mostly ran against him.

  So, be the first one to go bad. Claim the high ground. Ancient wisdom passed down from old Stonewall. Some situation where he was outnumbered and outgunned against a mess of Yankees, as usual. An underling asked what they were to do, and Stonewall said, Kill them all. According to the mythology, he seemed sort of sad about it.

  Which is how Bud felt when, with no prelude, he put his knife into Lit all the way to the quillons as they cruised up the road toward the quarter-mile slashes. He probed deep into Lit’s side where essential organs lay greasy and dark against one another. Every thrust opened the wound wider and dug deeper.

  Lit’s concentration on driving wavered. The car went tacking up the road.

  Bud leaned and took the wheel one-handed. He threw a leg over the drivetrain hump and kicked Lit’s foot from the pedals. The car stalled and rolled to a stop. Then it rolled slowly backward, jerking and grinding against the transmission until Bud stomped around and found the emergency-brake pedal left-footed.

  They sat nearly sideways in the middle of the steep black road with the headlights skewed toward the trees. Lit lived, but not in good shape. His hands gripped his cut middle, trying to hold himself in. His head not entirely under control.

  —How could you do me this way? Bud said.

  Lit bled out between his fingers. White in the face. He said, What?

  —I thought we were friends.

  Lit worked his mouth, but nothing got said.

  —I better drive, Bud said.

  He climbed out the passenger door and walked around the front of the car.

  Lit’s last moment of consciousness, a full moon blazing above the treetops and then Bud crossing the windshield, bleached by the headlights.

  Bud shoved Lit across the bench seat until his head leaned against the passenger armrest. Bud cranked up and drove on across the gap. Somewhere along the way, Lit passed.

  Way around the back side of the lake, up a narrow dirt road, Bud pulled Lit out of the car and dragged him far off into the dark woods. Wilderness. Maybe some grizzled hunter in the distant future of flying cars would come upon chalky mystery bones gnawed by porcupines and woodrats.

  Bud drove the patrol car back around to the end of the lake where the water backed up deep behind the dam. He found a steep slope of bank and rolled it into the lake. Windows down, hood and trunk lid up. Great silver moonlit bubbles broke the black water. Then the long walk home. Many miles, keeping an eye out for approaching headlights, but of course there were none in the middle of the night. In town, the three stoplights flashed yellow, streets empty. Bud, trying to prove to himself how fearlessness worked, walked right down the sidewalk.

  CHAPTER 13

  —YOU NEED TO LOOK at that bootlegger, Luce said. The sheriff, behind his desk, said, Look at who for what?

  —Johnson. Killed my sister, and now probably Lit too. And I’m afraid for Lily’s children, if I can’t stop him. Bootlegs for most of the county, but you don’t know who he is?

  —I know who the bootlegger is, but I’ve never heard Johnson. People call him Bud. And I appreciate your suggestions, but there are facts here. Do you want your back patted or do you want straight talk?

  —Oh, sure. Straight talk.

  —So then, fact is, the murder charge didn’t stick. And we don’t even know Lit’s dead yet. We know he’s missing. Which might be his way of resigning and moving to someplace like Florida or Maine. He’s not the type to give two weeks’ notice. Plus, Lit had enemies in four or five counties. But you know all this.

  Luce felt weary. She said, I know Bud did it. And he hurt the children pretty bad.

  The sheriff formed a look on his face like being indulgent wasn’t entirely beneath him. He said, And you know this how, Luce?

  —I’ve lived with them. They’ve been hurt.

  —They said it?

  Luce was about to say, Not in so many words. And then she knew immediately that it was not the moment to be terribly precise in telling the truth. She shut up and looked the sheriff in the eye.
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  He paused, like an actor pretending to think, and then he said, I’m keeping an eye on Johnson, and I want to find Lit as bad as anybody. But the main thing is, I’m sorry for you. I’ve seen you around town since you were a little dark-headed girl whose mother ran off. You got a bad deal there. Now you’ve lost your sister, and you’ve had a pair of messed-up kids loaded on you. And Lit’s missing, and never was much of a father. It’s natural to look for somebody to blame. But life is mostly shit, and it heaps on more when you’re already so loaded down you think you can’t go on. Putting one foot in front of the other and keeping going is about all the pleasure you get in life after you quit being young.

  —Going for what?

  —For no reason. Stop looking for reasons. Lit’s never given up wanting every day fired up like he was eighteen, and that’s a lot of what keeps him in trouble. Don’t make that same mistake.

  LUCE RIFLED THROUGH the few items of her previous life until she found her last birthday gift from Lit, a handsome fatherly present for a sweet-sixteen daughter. A slim straight razor with a shimmery pearl handle. The blade was a long rectangle of rippled blue steel with a crook at the end to flick it open by, an edge so keen you’d damage it by sharpening on the finest grit of whetstone. A thick oiled leather strop was the only way to go.

  —Happy birthday, Lit had said. Cut a man anywhere with that, he’ll have a hard time quitting bleeding. With the least stroke, it seeks bone.

  Teenage Luce had thought the gift of a straight razor stupid beyond belief, and her father an idiot. She hadn’t taken his message to heart, the dangers congregating all around. What a wonderful, peaceful world she thought she lived in back then.

  So Luce had left the razor at the bottom of a shoe box where she collected purse droppings. Lipstick nubs, broken tortoiseshell barrettes, single earrings, stretched-out ponytail elastics, packets of Clove with one brittle stick left, worn-out emery boards, a rusty church key, a yellow plastic whorl that adapted a fat 45 hole to a skinny LP spindle, a quarterback boyfriend’s class ring that she had worn on a chain around her neck for a month.

  But if she had taken her father’s gift as it was intended and carried it on her person at all times, Luce could have cut Mr. Stewart’s throat. Blood leaping into the air and covering his white shirtfront and tweed lapels. Horny, thrusting Mr. Stewart trying fruitlessly to suck air through a windpipe hanging out his neck like the end of a garden hose. Lay him wide open.

  So, in retrospect, maybe Lit had known a thing or two after all. It was one of those timeless patterns. Children rediscover their parents’ wisdom when they finally become adults themselves. If wisdom is the right word for going relentlessly armed with a blade honed so microscopically keen that when you cut somebody, they never stop bleeding.

  STUBBLEFIELD WAS THE owner of a nostalgic pistol. Early days after the fire, he had looked around the outbuildings of the old place for something to remember it by. In the smokehouse, he’d found his grandfather’s .32–20 rusting in a wooden box along with other tools. The head of a hand axe, an awl, various sizes of chisels, a plane. All Stubblefield remembered the pistol ever being used for was shooting snakes in the yard and weasels or foxes trying to kill the chickens. So it made sense that it had ended up in the toolbox. His grandfather hadn’t made a symbol of manhood out of it, and it wasn’t fancy. No nickel and pearl, merely a plain Colt, all the blue gone and the grip chipped. But, of course, it was the pistol and not the plane that Stubblefield decided to take with him as a memento. He had cleaned it and oiled it and displayed it beside his record player, like a smart-ass objet d’art. Now Stubblefield went to the Western Auto to see if they carried .32–20 loads.

  Man behind the counter said, Sure we do. Old boys up the coves still use them. So Stubblefield bought a box of Remingtons, and then on the way out the door changed his mind and bought three more.

  —What you planning, going to war? the man behind the counter said.

  Back at his cottage, Stubblefield decided to move in at the Lodge whether Luce liked it or not. He grabbed up the essentials. Some clothes for the cold weather to come, the record player, Kind of Blue, the pistol.

  When he got to the Lodge and began unpacking his things from the trunk of the Hawk, there wasn’t any discussion. Even the kids helped carry a load.

  That night, they all slept together in the main room. The children on their bed near the fire. Stubblefield and Luce half-reclined on a settle with their feet on an ottoman, Stubblefield’s good hand in her hair. The fire burning low and the radio low too, so they could hear sounds from outside. The pistol within reach and the doors locked.

  FIRST A DAY OF blowing cold and even a skift of snow high on the peaks as the front arrived. Then a clear cold night followed by a morning where, even two hours after dawn, real shadows gone, strange frost-shadows cast crazy brilliant interpretations of the angles of Lodge and smokehouse and springhouse glittering across the lawn. By late afternoon, the day had become warm enough to sit on the porch in the weathered rockers.

  Luce poured two glasses of red wine from a basement bottle with a mildewed French label. Old and awfully good and autumnal in the November sundown with brown frost-bit apples still hanging from bare limbs in the orchard and a fingernail radius of yellow moon following the sun to the horizon. Leaves covered the grass. Something yet trilled in the woods, a final katydid or frog. A bite in the air, and not a cloud in the sky. Bands of soft color glowed above the westward peaks. Peach and apricot and sepia, fading in pretty degrees to blue and finally indigo straight up. Expressed as art, the colors would lay on canvas entirely unnatural and sentimental, and yet they were a genuine manifestation of place many evenings in fall.

  At the end of the porch, the children played the kindling game, improvising a new rule where the palms of the losing player got whacked three times each with a stick of kindling. Which worked only until somebody hit too hard and Luce went over and shut the game down and aimed the kids toward the record player.

  Back in her rocker, Luce reached her hand to Stubblefield. The wine had put her in a mood. It was just a feeling, but she had become certain Lit was dead. She was not grief-stricken at all. They hadn’t ever been much at all to each other, but she was swept over with post-funeral numbness. Except, no funeral because no body.

  When the wine was gone, Stubblefield let go of her hand and fetched two short glasses of Scotch dating back to the age of silent movies.

  He said, I didn’t know him beyond two conversations where he set me up to act a fool. I can’t guess what you’re thinking about.

  —The war. It was the center of his life.

  In memoriam, Luce told Stubblefield how, when she was little, not many of the men around town wanted to talk about the war in any detail. They wanted to shut up about it and bask in victory and have a family and a good job and own a house and drive a new car all the time without having to smell a previous owner’s hair oil in the headliner ever again. Lit, though, wanted to talk about it. Luce and Lily composed his audience, for Lola classed every one of his stories as lies and left the room when he got going.

  But Lit told the little girls all about the many bad scrapes he had fallen into. D-Day, for starters. But after that spectacle, things soon broke down into countless little brutal skirmishes, not at all like something involving generals in the background making big plans with an overview. Lots of blood all the time, in graphic detail. Days and days with hardly any sleep or food. Small bunches of half-lost men with their faces blank from exhaustion and fear. France was nothing but footslogging and gunfights. Way later, far eastward, the final movement of Lit’s tale began with getting shot at by a Nazi tank in a frozen turnip field.

  Lit and a dozen hungry men trying to eat half-frozen turnips like apples, raw with the skin still on and not bothering to more than brush at the black dirt clinging to them. Dug them up with their hands clawed and stiff. Grey sky, snow imminent, a bitter wind. Such had been the weather for weeks. A boy named Codfelter, subject of
much amusement, and not just for his name, had come up with an enormous turnip. Right then, a round from the tank’s cannon hit beside Codfelter and all but took his leg off at the middle thigh, though a flap of skin kept it attached. The force of the round wrapped the lower leg around a strand of fence wire. Several rotations. The boy tried to crawl away, bleeding heavy. But the band of skin held him back.

  In some versions of the story, Lit shot Codfelter to put him out of his misery. In others he cut the rope of skin with his knife and improvised a tourniquet and helped Codfelter elude the tanks only to watch him die in a hedgerow, all bled out and white-faced. Sometimes Lit was captured in that tragic vegetable patch, and sometimes it was days later. The only parts that never changed were the weather, the field and its black dirt, the tank, and Codfelter’s awful leg.

  The capture always led to the story of being liberated from the German prison camp near war’s end. Knowing the Russians were coming with overwhelming force, the commandant lined up all the prisoners and the German guards in the yard. Two lines, face-to-face. Lit figured they were about to be machine-gunned. Yet when the Russians topped the closest hill, the commandant pulled out his Luger and shot himself through the roof of his mouth and out the top of his head. It was quick Lit who dashed and grabbed the pistol before it hit the ground. And then, he claimed, all the stunned and defeated Nazis put their weapons down so that moments later, when the Russians came rolling in to liberate the camp, Lit was in charge.

  There were endless addenda to the story, adventures involving being taken farther east with the Russians. And then the war ended. That night, sitting around a campfire, everybody got good and drunk on vodka. Come hungover dawn, the Russians gave Lit a handshake and a hearty fare-thee-well, for they were heading in opposite directions. Lit did not even know what country he was in. They all seemed an awful lot alike after a while. He spent weeks and weeks wandering westward across ravaged Europe with all its viciousness and culture, to make his way back to American troops. Along the way, lots of young eastern European women, recently widowed. Sad and needy, and ready to take him in for a few days. He could go on and on about their charity and their peasant charms. Their skill with a pot of water, a pinch of salt, and a potato.