“Where’s Dreama at?” Clay asked.
“Back in that bedroom, only place she ever is.” Gabe didn’t take his eyes from his cards. “Might as well not even live with me, cause she sure as hell ain’t no company, always locked up in that room.”
The double-wide was the kind of clean that only a bachelor and his eighteen-year-old daughter could achieve: it appeared to be clean only because things had been pushed behind other things. A new, obese sectional couch sat in a U in the living room, a tall Pioneer stereo system had several dozen loose cassette tapes stacked haphazardly inside the glass, a gun rack on the paneled wall held the rifles and shotguns. On the walls were pictures of Dreama and Clay in various states of growing up, blown-up snapshots of Anneth that they had had made after her death. A framed picture of Gabe and Dreama with OLAN MILLS stamped in silver in the corner. There were no photographs of Dreama’s mother in the house; she had left when Dreama was just a few months old, and Gabe wouldn’t even speak of her. There were a few pictures from Home Interiors that Lolie, Gabe’s girlfriend, had put on the walls to make the place look more homey.
Clay could remember so many nights spent here, so many nights when he had been awakened by men singing Loretta Lynn songs, stumbling up to the back door to buy a pint of whiskey or a half case of Blue Ribbon. Easter had raised him, but he had lived at Gabe’s. Sometimes Gabe would tell the men to hush, that he had children in the house. Other times Gabe would invite them on in and they would play poker and get drunk. Gabe loved to drink, and he loved to have a big crowd around all the time. When he had a party, people came from everywhere to attend.
Several times Easter had burst in to grab up Clay and Dreama, her voice thunder when she shouted that Gabe was going to kill himself drinking and drive everyone else crazy in the meantime. But when Easter was gone to tent meetings or revivals—where people hardly ever brought children—he and Dreama were allowed to stay right in the party crowd. Clay sat in Gabe’s lap while they played quarter bounce or five-card draw.
The women sat on the couches and smoked long cigarettes, playing 45s on the stereo. They would all sing together on songs like “Harper Valley P.T.A.” and “Love Is a Rose” in wild, laughing choruses with their bottles held high. They danced by themselves to anything by Bob Seger, but called the men in to twirl them around when Tom Jones sang “Say You’ll Stay until Tomorrow.” It was like that—scratchy records, smoke-filled rooms, cussing men, the bing of a quarter being bounced off the table and into a shot glass.
Usually Clay and Dreama tired of watching the party and sat outside long into the night. They waded in the black water of the creek until Lolie came out to call them back. Sometimes the people who came brought their own children, and they all played hide-and-seek or Star Wars in the blue-dark yard. They sneaked cigarettes from unwatched packs and smoked on the creek bank. Dreama would put on talent shows, and she always won by applause when she put on a blond wig left behind by her mother and danced across the porch, pantomiming Dolly Parton singing “Old Flames (Can’t Hold a Candle to You).” They would catch the lightning bugs that came up out of the laurels lining the creek and then put them into mason jars or wear them as glow rings on their fingers. Clay and Dreama climbed trees or lay back on damp grass, talking about how they would be when they grew up.
All of the people would stay all night, and on Sunday mornings Clay would awake to find sleeping bodies strewed throughout the house—two or three on the couch, more on mattresses Gabe had dragged out of the closet, people lying right in the hallway.
Clay walked down the hallway toward Dreama’s room. He paused at the closed door of his old bedroom, even going so far as to put his hand on the cold knob. He knew it was just an empty room now, occupied by nothing more than a bed with no headboard. The bed was kept in there so people who stayed and partied would have a soft place to fall. It wasn’t his room anymore.
He went to Dreama’s bedroom door and opened it without knocking. She sat on the edge of her bed, painting her fingernails in slow, careful strokes.
“Clay!” she squalled, and ran to him. “I’m glad you finally here. You might as well live in Lexington as over in Black Banks—I feel like you a hundred miles away.”
She hugged him around the neck, holding her hands out in the air behind his head to keep the polish out of his hair.
“What’ve you been up to?”
“Nothing much. Going out with Darry, cleaning up after Daddy and all them drunks that lay here practically every night of the week nowadays. I run some of them off the other night. I swear, them men are scared to death of me, and I can’t understand it. They’d stare down death if somebody was holding a pistol between their eyes, but when I come running down the hallway and tell them they’re too loud, they scatter.”
He laughed. “Come on,” he said. “Easter’s got supper ready.”
“D’you bring Daddy something to eat?” she asked.
“Yeah, come on before it gets cold.”
Across the yard, Dreama hung on to his arm and talked about how she hated working at Hardee’s and how she couldn’t stand the thought of school starting back, since she had graduated last May. She couldn’t find a thing worth reading and hadn’t been to the movies in ages. Dreama had long, black hair that slapped her back when she jerked her head around and blue eyes so bright that you could see them coming down a dark road. The annual Heritage Festival had held a look-alike contest last autumn, and Dreama had won for borrowing some girl’s prom hoopskirt and looking just like Vivien Leigh.
“And Clay,” she said, catching his arm before he could go in the back door. “They’s something I’ve got to talk to you about.”
“What is it?”
“Just don’t set and jaw with Easter all day and don’t be in no big rush to run off.” She glanced down to his hands, where he was still clutching the .22.
“And put that pistol up,” she said. “Easter sees that and she’ll die stone-hammer dead over Daddy giving you a gun.”
2
THERE IS A COOL that sometimes comes down over the mountains in the evening. The day slips away slowly, so quietly and secretly that no one really notices until it is gone. The peach light stands like steam along the horizon, changing the shape of things. Night does not come quickly, does not even give a hint of its coming, and for a while, there is just the cool, when there is no night and no day, only time, stretched out like ice. No clocks ticking away the minutes, no movement of the earth, nothing growing or changing.
And the cool comes down, peaceful and soft. Mist seeps out of the jagged cliffs. The breeze picks up a bit, stirring the mist in a slow, graceful dance through the trees, dampening thirsty leaves. No night sounds are heard. A lone bird hollers somewhere, far up on the mountain, and its lonesome sound cracks the stillness. The creek slips over old rocks.
It was an evening like that.
Easter wiped her hands off on the dry dishcloth and spread it over the shiny wall dividing the sink. “Let’s go out on the porch,” she said. “It’s too pretty an evening to be setting in the house.”
The porch was long and cool, as if the air of last autumn was stored within its little space. Dreama and Easter sat on the padded glider, and Clay positioned himself up on the railing. The worst thing about coming up to Easter’s to eat was that he couldn’t smoke a cigarette after supper. His mouth watered for one, but he couldn’t stand to smoke in front of her.
Easter exhaled loudly, like someone who had spent a long day at work. Clay watched as her thin body settled into the deep cushions and she lay her head back against the wall to close her eyes. Lately he had noticed the gray at her temples, the thinness of the skin at her wrists, and the pale blue of her veins there.
“Summer won’t be here much longer,” Easter said. “We in for bad weather this fall. Smell wet days right in the night air.”
“I love the fall. Fall clothes is so much prettier than any other time,” Dreama said, swinging her legs.
“It’s
pretty, but too lonesome a time for me,” Easter said. “Fall makes you think of old times, somehow.”
Dreama was not anxious to hear an old tale. She jumped up out of the glider and kicked the bottom of Clay’s boot. “Clay, let’s walk up in the holler fore it gets dark,” she said, and widened her eyes, nodding toward the road.
“Won’t you let me set and talk to Easter while my food settles?”
“Go on with her, Clay,” Easter said, and waved them away. “I just want to set here and rest.”
They walked up the holler road, past the rows of houses and the gardens that grew close to the road. The corn looked black in the waning light. People were making their way out onto their porches to watch night set in, and they all waved and called out to Dreama and Clay. As soon as they were out of Easter’s watchful eye, Clay fired up a Marlboro.
He paused where the road forked and looked up toward the family graveyard, sucking hard on his cigarette.
“You want to go up to the graveyard?” Dreama asked, watching him. “You ain’t been in a while.”
“Not this evening.”
“Let’s go on the old path, then,” Dreama said. “We ain’t been to the cedar together in forever.”
They crossed the bridge and went up on the path into the mountain that faced the row of houses. Tiny bunches of bluebells grew in clumps on one side, and the other side was a straight cliff that supported a forest of pine trees that leaned over and peeked at those who walked below. At the end of the path stood a huge, domineering cedar. Within its shadow, the fragrance of its wood covered their clothes, just like the scent of his mother’s lacquered casket had. Beneath the ancient tree sat a long, wide boulder that had bowls worn in it from years of children’s rumps. The tree and rock were directly in front of Easter’s house, about level with the roof, and Clay couldn’t count the hours they had spent playing here, watching everything go on at the houses without anyone knowing they could see. This had been their secret place, the one place the adults never intruded on.
The rock was still warm from the sun, and Clay kept his hand on it, stroking it like a woman’s back, when he sat down. “I’m gonna smoke another’n,” he said, and lit a new cigarette off the burning filter of his last. “I been dying for one the last two hours.”
“You’ll really want one when I get done talking to you, my opinion,” Dreama said. She stood in front of him with her arms folded. Behind her, Clay could see Easter through the thick trees, walking around her porch, picking dead petals off her hanging plants.
“I know you ain’t pregnant,” Clay said, finally hearing what she had said.
“Lord no,” she said. “But I swear, I dread telling this to you. They’s something you got to promise me before I tell it. Please don’t start giving me advice and trying to change my mind, all right? My mind is set on this and there ain’t no way I’m changing it.”
“Hellfire, Dreama, what is it? Tell me.” He hated the way she dragged out every little thing. When she won that look-alike contest, she had spun round and round in her hoopskirt, saying, “Why, fiddle-dee-dee!” over and over, until the announcer had to force her off the lunchroom stage.
Dreama ran her eyes up the damp cliffs behind them, as if she was seeing them for the first time. Then she looked right at Clay. “Well, me and Darry’s fixing to get married.”
Clay stood and hooked his thumbs into his belt loops. “Dreama, you’re just eighteen year old.”
“I know, Clay, but I love him.” Dreama did not strike Clay as a child when she spoke, although he had always seen her as one before. He started to say that she wasn’t old enough to know what love was, but he knew that he didn’t believe that.
“You’ve got your whole life to get married. Why now? You always wanted to go to college. Don’t be like everbody else.”
“No, I always wanted to marry Darry Spurlock, and you know I did. I’ve been crazy over him since the seventh grade. Me and him’s done talked about college and he wants me to go. I never would’ve left here to go, no way. I’ll go up the community college and get in their nursing program.”
“Shit, that’s what everbody says. It’s hard enough to get through school, period, much less be a married woman and go. I guarantee you’ll never go.”
“Well, I will. Mark my words. Even if I don’t, it won’t be the end of the world. You can’t have it all, Clay, and this is what I want most. I want to be with Darry.”
“See, you already talking like school ain’t important. Don’t do this, Dreama. Don’t ask for a hard life, cause that’s all you’ll get with Darry Spurlock.”
Dreama laughed. She kicked the dirt at her feet and sat down on the rock.
“You just don’t understand. I want something real and solid, Clay. I want something I can say is mine.”
“That ain’t no reason to get married.”
“That’s what love is, Clay. It ain’t about getting away from Daddy or having a change. I told you first thing, I love him. Don’t you understand that?”
“Naw, I guess I don’t. Not when you just graduated from high school and got everthing laid out in front of you, I don’t. What’s the big rush?”
Dreama stood up beside Clay, weaving her arm through his. Darkness had descended over the valley, and they stood there a long time without speaking, listening to the night sounds fill the holler. The sound of the creek’s rushing water seemed to have intensified with the darkness.
He could tell that Dreama was thinking too hard; she was trying to get her words just right, and her face announced this as plainly as if she were running her finger down the pages of a dictionary.
“Clay, I can feel this right in my stomach, and I know it’s real. I can’t throw it away. If things was different for you, you might be able to see my point.”
“What do you mean?”
“You ain’t never been in love, Clay. You don’t know what it feels like.”
“No,” he said, “according to you all, I just stay drunk and don’t want nothing else but that.” He felt a wave of jealousy wash over him, but he did not know where it had come from. He jerked his arm away from her and went back to the tree, standing so close to it that its strong scent nearly sickened him.
“I never said nothing like that,” Dreama said, and put her hand on his arm again. “Clay, what is it?”
“Nothing,” he answered. The swelling clamor of the creek nearly overtook his words. “Go on back to the house.”
“Are you that mad over me and Darry?”
“It ain’t you,” he said. “It’s me. I just want to set here, by myself.”
She left without a word, and he did not look up to see her go down the old path and fade into the gathering shadows. When he finally looked up, he could just barely make out her figure moving down the road, going back toward Easter’s house. He imagined the way she looked: her long hair swinging back and forth, her small ankles beneath her skirt. He wanted to run through the tangle of brush and brier between himself and the road, splash through the loud creek, and run to catch up with her. He wanted to pull her around and hold her close to him without saying a word, but he didn’t. He stood by the cedar and let night seep in around him.
CLAY AND EASTER had sat up so late talking that he stayed the night. He hadn’t stayed over in a long while and was surprised by how familiar the bed was to him. The sheets smelled the same; the shadows on the wall moved in the same jagged patterns. The sound of the creek came through his open window and made him think that he was still a child and that time had not moved forward at all.
He awoke early the next morning. He was surprised to see that he had risen before Easter, who usually got up at the crack of daylight. He moved carefully out of the house so he would not wake her, and put on his boots on the back stoop. The morning hit him like two handfuls of cold water. The white mist easing off the mountain was burning away quickly in the new light of day, and the dew sparkled in the grass like bits of glass. He breathed deeply and shook his head side to s
ide in satisfaction.
Without knowing why, he walked down to the mouth of the holler, where he could stand on the bridge and look back at the houses lining the road and hanging from the mountainsides. He looked at the sleeping houses, the scratch of road, the noisy creek. He planned to stare at them so long that he would burn this picture into his head, the way you can do with the sun when its image is left imprinted on the tops of your eyelids. He didn’t know why he felt the need to do this; when he had moved to town, he had felt as if he was escaping this place.
Almost to the bridge, he heard a little voice call out: “Aye! What’re you doing up so early?”
He looked to the porch of his great-uncle Paul’s house, where Paul’s wife, Sophie, was standing on the porch in her housecoat. Their house was a big, forbidding one with black shutters and a long porch built on painted cinder blocks. It seemed to be the matriarch of all the others.
Sophie was so small that Clay wondered if her bones were hollow, like a bird’s, and she looked even smaller on the high, wide porch. Even now her hair was already up in the perfect, church-ready bun she had worn as long as he could remember. Her glasses caught sunlight and glinted out across the yard. Once Clay got up the steep steps to the swinging door on the porch, he saw that his aunt Sophie was smoking a cigarette.
“What are you doing, Aunt Sophie?” Clay said, not hiding his surprise.
She glanced at the cigarette, took one long last draw, and threw it into a coffee can that sat on the porch rail. She laughed mischievously. “Didn’t you know I smoked, Clay?”
“Lord, no. I never would’ve thought that.”
“Well, I let you see me. Only two or three people know. It’s such a pretty morning, I wanted to share a secret with somebody.” She eyed him curiously and realized he needed an explanation.
“I smoked before I started going to church. When I got saved, I tried my best to quit, but I couldn’t. My mommy bout killed me, said if I was really saved, the Lord would take such a craving away. I bout backslid over it, because Mommy and Paul and everbody took such a fit over it. So, I started having me one of the morning, before anybody was up, and one at night when everbody was in the house. I sacrificed a lot of satisfaction for the Lord, I’ll tell you that much.” Sophie’s laugh was soft and polite, yet uncontained, like a kitten coughing. “Well, do you think I’m a bad sinner?”