May Book Reviews

Look for these book reviews (and probably a few more) in May!

The Midnight Disease

The Midnight Disease
Freelance Writing’s Joy And Terror


To the freelance writers who labor in the shadows.
I know you are out there: unknown, unappreciated, underpaid, unfazed.


When I was in the throes of finishing a novel, if I woke up in the dead of night, say 3:12 a.m., and couldn’t fall asleep in 20 minutes, I’d put on coffee and write. By night I chased dreams. By day I chased money. I am a hired gun, a freelancer.

Freelancing is simple. Either you can write well enough to make a living or you can’t. A degree isn’t necessary. Courage is.

I’m often asked to explain the writing life. What’s freelancing like? How did you become a freelancer? For a long time I couldn’t explain my path to writing or freelancing’s randomness, difficulty, and purity. An accident of sorts, a temporary teaching position at Columbia College brought me to Columbia. I’ve been here since. On assignment to write about waterfalls a few years back, I found my elusive answer.

“In the Cherokee’s Great Blue Hills of God,” I wrote, “rivers thunder over the Blue Ridge Escarpment. Waterfalls pound the rocks, kicking up mists, which receive treasures from wayward winds—fern spores from the tropics. The lucky ones fall into moist, fertile niches and bless the hard gray rocks with green riches. The others perish.”

I, too, was windblown, a spore who found a hospitable niche. Many times I have renewed myself through writing, Resurrection Fern that I am.

Derivations

I grew up in Lincoln County, Georgia. It’s a good place. The people are solid South. Still, cows outnumbered the people and the world of pastures and pine forests was light years from the life this boy imagined.


Growing up, I worked in dad’s saw shop, a tin building set on concrete. It had no insulation, no heating, no cooling system. In summer, fans welded to truck rims swirled the sweltering air about, and sweat made dark spots in the armpits of Dad’s blue National Linen shirts.

In winter, tires burning in a wood stove turned the stovepipe cherry red. Ten feet from the stove, though, my breath hung amidst smoky shafts of blue winter light.

The place bristled with menacing blades and tools. Paintbrushes in buckets of gas stood ready to clean black resinous sawdust from saws that had slain Georgia pines. One day, a shop hand cleaning saws splashed gas on his overalls. Daydreaming, he walked near an acetylene torch showering steel sparks. He ran outside, his mad rush fanning the flames until dad tackled him and rolled him in the dirt. The sickly sweet smell of burnt flesh stayed with me a long time.

My dream to write was embryonic but I knew one thing: I didn’t want to be around steel, sparks, and gas. A vast sea lay before me, one I had no choice but to cross. I cast my fate to the wind. I didn’t worry about being blown off course. There was no course.

My father’s father owned a fine cattle farm and he gave me some advice I never forgot. “If you can make money for the man, you can make it for yourself.” After earning a Journalism degree and a master’s at Georgia and five years of college-level teaching, I set out on my true journey—to write, break into print, and freelance.

My first full-time writing position was as a scriptwriter/cinematographer for natural history films similar to “National Geographic” documentaries. These were the days of endless revisions, remote locations, primitive barrier islands, cold mornings in blinds, and days along blackwater rivers. These were the nights of filming nesting sea turtles in Cape Romain Wildlife Refuge while that luminous river of the heavens, the Milky Way, wheeled above.

I was happy writing scripts. Still, writing for print was the song the sirens sang. South Carolina Wildlife published my first feature, “Mysteries Of The Firefly’s Light,” illustrated by Joe Byrne. I became the magazine’s managing editor. I wrote features and worked with photographer Robert Clark. In time, we tired of the same old same old but wanted to give it one good shot before leaving.

We set out one spring morning in 1987 for something meaningful. Along Highway 378, we found it: the vanishing shanties of a vanishing South.

“Tenant Homes—A Testament To Hard Times” struck a chord. Newspapers throughout South Carolina reprinted it and the stately little shacks’ sad stories caught the eye of the USC Press. In one home, an old black lady had scraped by selling lye soap and “flowers” cut from pink and mint green Styrofoam egg cartons. She had died two weeks earlier and unfinished work lay among rat pellets and dead insects. Pines swallowed her shack but her story lives on, here even.

After John Culler left South Carolina Wildlife, it became a government publication run by bureaucrats. A book contract in hand, I walked out to freelance in August ’87.

Finis.

I had never felt more alive or more afraid.

Writing Lessons

Everyone should live a year or three without a salary. You’ll learn something about yourself. I learned much. That some people view freelance writing as a mystical calling while others deem it menial, something akin to a short order cook who scratches out the day’s menu.

That business types insist on capitalizing “customer,” “client,” and “company.” “Well that’s how we earn money.” Oh, I get it. We Writers use Words. Plumbers repair Leaks. What arrogance. Never forget, the business world gave us that gem, “functionality.” What nonsense. Georgia writer, Harry Crews pegged these types. “If you give a man a white shirt and a tie and a suit of clothes, you can find out real quick how sorry he is.”
Sorry indeed.

That women tend to see writers as romantic, heroic loners. One night, sharing drinks with a woman, long after the thrill of seeing my byline had died, she asked in wonderment, “Don’t you just love seeing your name in print?”

“I love seeing my name on a check,” I replied. (A Payment Fable: Once upon a time, three clients screwed me. All three drove Jaguars.)

That I prostituted myself being a ghostwriter, a phantom for egos. “Look, I got published.”
That belittlement comes with the territory. I was introduced to a haughty Yankee, a thick-hipped executive, fond of herself and fond of food.

“A writer,” she said. “Well, I mastered that in college and moved on to bigger things.”
Bigger, indeed.

That freelancing brings the world to you. As the years unfolded, I interviewed Bill Gaither, Armstrong Williams (who interviewed me), Mackenzie Astin, Delbert McClinton, Patty Duke, and Grand Funk Railroad’s Don Brewer who sang “We’re An American Band” to me. I came to know James Dickey and corresponded with writers Faye Moskowitz and James Salter, wrote speeches for governors and Bill Gates. These events were light years from saws, gasoline, and men afire.

Dazzled by the possibilities, I stuck with it. I wrote to live but lived to write even more. Beneath it all, though, lurks a fear and aching loneliness I never quite shake.
Monday morning. Cars leave driveways. People rush to work. Soon, they will be in status meetings planning their week, sharing lunch, and receiving automatic deposits no matter what they don’t do. I, however, have no projects, no deadlines, no lunch plans. Today I will attempt to create art but I know I will fail.

The craving to create something sacred is maddening. Write hack copy for a living too long, I fear, and my love for writing will die. A sad blues refrain plays in my mind. You know I'm free, free now baby. I’m free from your spell. I’m free, free now; I’m free from your spell. And now that it's over, all I can do is wish you well. Did I ever consider giving up? One day, while running on a wooded trail near an assistive living center, I came upon a young man and a much older woman in a secluded glade kissing with passion, their side-by-side wheelchairs backed together.

Sometimes the terror overpowers you. You take a sabbatical, a “real job” like a spy who comes in from the cold. Even that’s difficult. Being a “wordslinger” intimidates the weak-kneed who might hire you. Happy with their direct deposit and benefits, they give you short shrift. I was passed over for a job once because I was “too good.” You wouldn’t tell a physician, “No, you might save too many lives.” And so, the truth is sometimes you have no choice but to freelance.

Fine.

Alone with your thoughts, terror at bay, your day is pure. Once you get past the Monday melancholia, the rest of the week is dreamlike. Freedom. No meetings. Morning sunlight streams in as New Age strains fill the air. A candle burns softly. A rose the color of coral begins to open on my desk. From a fountain, the glassy crash of falling water—a sound older than mankind—floods the room with serenity. At my fingertips lies mankind’s crowning achievement: language.

“Writing is a kind of smoke, seized and put on paper,” wrote Salter. Yes, without doubt. You grab, get nothing. Eventually I seized a curl and discovered a rich world—not the materialistic world—something more valuable, one with thrills, a grain of recognition, pleasure and peril.

A beautiful woman writes, “Well, I’m not the slightest bit surprised I loved it. Nothing you write could disappoint me.” Having a flawless blonde, fresh as mint (we just met), take your hand and say, “you and I will make love.”

A writer can be a bit of a rake. Of course writing offers pleasure. December, an icy night for a sidewalk book signing, nonetheless a spark of admiration warms the evening.
“I know you must love being a writer,” a ravishing blonde tells me. “I envy you so.” She leaves, glances back, smiles. Though it’s Christmas, her creamy skin is a burnished summer gold, her legs sculpted. She’s stepped right off the silver screen into my heart.
You bask in the limelight a bit and everyone wants to know you, but then you retreat to another uninspiring assignment, lonely, forgotten, all the while looking for a way out of hackdom.

Exposé

Over the years, I’ve seen how those exposed to the disease prove their immunity. Many would-be writers crossed my path. They took my classes. Called me. Wrote me. Some plunged in too steeply and burned out. Others approached too lightly and glanced away, forever uncaptured. Many didn’t have control of their time: writing’s true raw material. Of the hundreds of aspiring writers I’ve taught, but two made it. One became a magazine editor, Sam Morton, he freelances now. The other writes for National Geographic, Glen Oeland.

Writing makes fools of some and fools others into thinking it’s easy. Seeking therapy, many aspiring writers join writer’s groups, though their time would be better served writing. In 1992, Warren Slesinger, USC Press acquisitions editor, called. He was addressing a writer’s group that evening and wanted company. Beers afterward convinced me to go.

We drove to an old home converted into a law firm on Laurel Street. Pink and evocative of Charleston, it had a staircase at the top of which sat a large room with a long table surrounded by dreamers.

Unforgettable night.

A spirited brunette, Collette, introduced Warren, which brought a buzz from the would-be writers. Warren introduced me as an author. This, too, sent a murmur around the table. The brunette and I locked eyes. She was, I’d discover, a woman who always got what she wanted.

Truly unforgettable. A man whose day job was keeping statistics on venereal diseases read an impassioned piece about English General Orde Wingate who was desperate to fight the Japanese hunkered down in a swamp in Burma.

General Wingate pranced around naked—it’s true—at strategic moments to get an edge. A British general exposed to his officers was comical enough but as the VD statistician read his stilted prose, his crescendo climaxed with Wingate’s plan to roust the Japanese from their haven.

“Men, I’ll penetrate the Japanese in their rear.”

The room exploded in laughter.

The love statistician slammed his fist on the table. “Damn it, this is serious.”

The Sentence

At evening’s end, the brunette approached. “Can I call you? I have a manuscript I’d love for you to read.”

I handed her my card.

The next afternoon a blue convertible pulled into my driveway. Out popped Collette with her Midnight dossier. I invited her in, told her I’d read her work and started coffee. Before I poured the first cup, she put her arms around me.

“As soon as I saw you, I knew we were meant for each other.”

After that we seldom discussed writing. A year after meeting Collette, I came in from the cold, taking a writing position at Policy Management Systems Corporation, a place overrun with ardent, attractive women. (You can’t spell “promiscuous” without PMSC—the eager letters line up.) Collette asked me to get her on there, but the corporate world has no need for romance writers. Still, I told her to call me back in a week. She never did. Women fade as their fever cools. And so, I forgot her.

Seven years later, a woman with the name of an actress and I sat at a bar talking with a couple we had bumped into on our runs into Cola Town. The man was nowhere as vibrant as his brilliant brunet. When he went to the men’s room, she slid over, confessional, volunteering he had lost his previous wife and child in an accident. “He had the most difficult time with his wife,” she said in apology.

The next day, fearful, I called Collette’s office. A woman answered. I asked for Collette. She put me on hold ... then, “Sir, she was killed in a car wreck three years ago.”
I said nothing. Hung up.

Now and then, I pass the attorney’s office on Laurel. It’s a different color, maize. I remember the beautiful brunette determined to be a writer. I see her in my driveway, stepping from her car. I see her slipping her clothes off, freeing her bra. She loved words, she loved writers, but not the real me.

Her poor husband ... I think of him too. Tragedies abound.

“Your book has just been haunting me. Tell your friends you have an agent.” July 2, 2002. I had just signed a contract with New York literary agent, Malaga Baldi. Her words should have taken me to the heights. They couldn’t. I’d just learned my father would have his larynx removed. The voice that urged me to study to avoid Vietnam vanished beneath the knife. He died November 15, 2003. Cancer. I write about him often, as I do here. And sometimes I do so in the dead of night. Twenty minutes pass. Sleep refuses to return. I write.


What’s freelancing like? This. A cold wind blows. I stand on a peninsula, alone: in one direction, the joyous Sea of Creation, in the other, the terrifying Sea of Disaster. Infected by the Midnight Disease, I plunge in and swim against the current like a crazy man, hoping talent will save me. I know though. I know.

There is no cure. You write—for better or worse—until death do you part.

_________________________________


Tom Poland
A Southern Writer
www.tompoland.net

VENTURE

VENTURE
By
Ron Richardson

In the last hours before dawn, the wind freshened from the north, bringing gray clouds and a promise of snow. The white mansion, cloaked in darkness, sat nestled among ancient oaks. Behind the house a narrow path wound through the trees, and down to a bubbling creek where it ended. On the far bank connected by a rickety bridge were six old cabins. Candlelight flickered from the window of one.

Inside the cabin, coals hissed from a dying fire. Huddled across the room in icy shadows was a young Negro woman. She struggled to stand, leaned against the cabin wall. Gathering herself, she pushed away, swaying like a drunken woman. She moved close to the fire. She dropped to the cold earthen floor, faced the hearth and closed her eyes.
The pain came in short bursts. She turned on her back, raised her legs above the hearth and let her heels settle on the sooty surface. Sweat glistened on her brow like pearl droplets, curling in rivulets into her kinky hair. “Oh, Lord!” she screamed and a bloody baby boy slid from her. Reaching between her legs she gathered him into her arms and warmed his naked body.

She named him Venture. The year was 1850.

* * * * * *

Eighty-four years later a soft breeze swirled down from the Arkansas hills. It cooled the lowlands as it passed, stirring leaves laden with color around the feet of the Reverend Moses Jackson. The solemn man of God standing over Venture’s grave spent little time in finishing his lackluster eulogy. He closed his bible as the men loosened their grip on the ropes beneath the knotty pine coffin and lowered Venture into his final resting place.
The year was 1934.

The only spectator to Venture’s funeral, was young itinerant Woodrow Cobb who watched slouched against an ancient oak tree. Later he sat alone on the porch of Venture’s cabin out of the wind. Early evening shadows lengthened and vanished. When he could no longer see, he stood, went inside and closed the door behind him.

The room was musty and smelled of smoke. Fireplace coals glowed giving sparse light and no warmth. Woodrow stoked the dying fire until sparks danced up and out the chimney. He lit a stubby candle and sat it on the log mantle. He pulled Venture’s rickety rocker closer to the fire and eased into it. Settled, he let his glance move about the tiny room filled with fire-shadows.

It had been four days since he walked the dusty roads of Arkansas and saw Venture’s ramshackle old house nestled on the brink of a low hill, gray smoke curling from a rock chimney. Hoping for a meal, Woodrow hailed the cabin, the loudness startling napping birds that twittered and flew away.

.There was no reply. A steep path wound upward from the road through knee-high weeds. Footsore and hungry, Woodrow climbed the trail to the cabin. He stopped short of the porch when he saw an old man perched atop a cane chair, eyes closed, chest rising and falling in slow cadence.

“Howdy mister,” Woodrow said, hoping not to startle him awake.

His eyes opened. A glistening black face stared at him. His chair thumped down. He rose and stood on wobbly legs.

“I was jus’ passin’ by,” Woodrow explained, arms stretched wide, “ saw that smoke hangin’ over the cabin . . .” he smiled, “thought there might be somebody to home and maybe a hot meal up here.”

The old man ignored him. The sun was low behind the trees when Woodrow scratched his head, “I could stay the night, little late to be leavin’. I’ll sleep in the barn. Whatcha’ say?”
In the barn he found a warm corner piled high with hay where just before he lay down to sleep he wondered if the man might be tetched in the head.

Woodrow managed to stay on a few days, promising to earn his keep. The first day he cut and stacked firewood. The second day he repaired the leaky roof and cleaned the barn. The old man uttered not a word. He just sat on the porch and watched Woodrow sweat. Frustrated, Woodrow drew a bucket of cool cistern water, washed his face and went down the hill. He walked at a steady pace for a mile, temper sparking.

He was back in an hour. The old man hadn’t moved. His mind made up, Woodrow blurted, “I’m leavin’ in the mornin’.”

****

The old man panicked. He knew that if Woodrow left it would be his last chance to tell the true story of Venture Washington. But how?

A plan took shape in his head. A smile parted his thick lips, and he went to bed.
On the third morning Woodrow awoke to a commotion of clattering hooves outside the barn door.

“May! June! Yaw’ll lazy no counts mules . . . step up!” It was Ventures raspy voice.
Woodrow raised up on one arm, “what in tarnation is goin’ on?” He ran his fingers through his unruly hair, scattering straw on the barn floor. Staggering to the door he saw Venture astride a bony mule.

“Gitup!” He yelled, and kicked the mule in the side.

“Whata’ ya know.” A surprised Woodrow exclaimed.

Venture stopped at the front of the house, slid down, dropped the halter and climbed the porch steps, settling in his chair.

A quick glance made sure that Woodrow was near. He crooked his finger and beckoned him closer. He leaned forward, staring hard at his mules. His mouth opened . . .

“Mules pay ’tention when I tawk’s tuh yaw’ll.” His voice deliberate, “I is Venture Washington . . . born ‘bouts 1850 somewhere’s in Tennessee. I is eighty-fo’ and this is my story you is ‘bout to hear. So listen up.”

Woodrow sat on the step. Holy smoke, he thought, what next?

“I wus born a slave chil, de oldest of fo’ boys. I wus a field hand almos’ befo’ I could walk. Thas all I ever knew.

I reckin’ it long ‘bout de time I wus ‘lebum, they wus talk goin’ roun’ ‘bouts a war.”
“Anyways, everythin’ wus changin’ for us ‘roun’ there mighty fast. Wasn’t long befo’ Massa Bonnet got's awful mean to us, mo’ than usual. Us po’ slaves just thought he was a worryin’ too much ‘bouts the war and takin’ it out on us. The mo’ I thinks ‘ bout it the mo’ I thinks he wus just downright scairt stiff of us’un. ‘Fraid we run off or do somethin’ even worse’n.”

“What’s goin’ on with him?”

“Don’t guess I needs to tell you we tried real hard to stay outin’ Massa Bonnet’s way. Got so bad we got’s to walkin’ ‘roun’ kindly hang dawg, you know what I means? Kep’ our kinky heads pointed at de ground whisperin’ low to each other so’s nobody could hear. We wus awful scairt of dem skittery white folks in dem days awright. Ceptin’ for . . .
My old Pappy. Massa Bonnet and Pappy never did like each other much. Pappy was a trouble maker aw’right. Mos’ times he was like a crazy yeller bee a’buzzin’ ‘roun’ Massa’s head, jus’ waitin’ fo a good swattin’. It pleasure him a whole lot to see Massa red in de face, madder than a old rooster.

Venture paused, his head moving slowly up and then down, remembering . . .

Massa catch him makin’ fun sometimes and beat him with a quirt ‘til he wus bleedin’ bad. If’n’ you ask me I don’t think my Pappy wus ever scairt of Massa Bonnet. He wus awful stubborn. And then de day come . . .”

“Massa stay drunk aw de time and kinda crazy, like a old mad dawg afoamin’ at de mouth. He come down the hill mos’ ever night raisin’ cane, bent on hurtin’ some po’ body. Thas how my old Pappy finally got kilt. It happen late one night . . .”

Venture sucked in his breath, blew his nose and wiped his eyes.

“ We hear somebody a comin’ down the path, cussin’ way loud. Figger he drunk on whiskey. It been rainin’ sum. I remember it awful hot and sticky. Stiflin’ in dem old cabins, so’s we’s all be outside, sittin’ ‘roun’ talkin’, swattin’ pesky skeeters, waitin’ for it to coo.

‘Bout’s that time I seen lantern glow up on de hill comin’ down our way, bouncin’ and bobbin’ off all dem trees and I knows they is trouble aplenty aheadin’ my way. Sho nuff it was Massa Bonnet on one of his rampages. He comin’ right for the shacks. ‘Bout’s that time I got real scairt and run off. I hid in the dark.

I watch old Massa Bonnet staggerin’ ‘roun’ fallin’ down in de mud, yellin’ an a hollerin’ plum full a meanness. My old Pappy jus’ standin’ there watchin’ him come. Massa Bonnet walk right up to him taken his pistol outin’ his belt and with no warnin’ ataw shoots my Pappy in the head. 

Pappy jus’ look surprised and fall over his face spurtin’ blood. His eyes wus wide open, starin’ big as silver dollars. Massa Bonnet jus’ laugh. Nobody say nothin’ nohow. We to scairt.”

Venture paused. When he spoke again it was almost a whisper.

“They ain’t no words for how I feel when I saw him shot so’s I ain’t even gonna try to tell yaw’ll.”

Woodrow had trouble hearing him. He leaned forward.

“Massa Bonnet wrong to kill my Pappy the way he did. I hates him for it! My mind done gone crazy that night. I kep’ on sayin’ over and over in my head . . . yaw’ll got to revenge your old Pappy’s dyin’. Never did tho.

De very next day, outin’ pure meanness, I swore my mouth shut forever.

“So that’s it! He made a promise and never broke it. Amazin’!

Two mo’ years go by befo’ the war be over in ‘65. Two mighty hard years. My mouth stay shut aw that time. My Mammy real sad with me not tawkin’, thinks I sick. I truly sorry ‘bouts that. All that fightin’, it takin’ a toll on Massa Bonnet, he jus’ barely alive. He took losin’ mighty hard. Never saw him no mo’. He stay up to the big house aw de time.!
An then one day I jus’decide to up and leave. Figured I ain’t doin’ no good where I was. So’s I jus’ walk’s away. Never told nobody goodbye, not even my Mammy. I’s ‘bout sixteen, I guess.

I nearly starved. Law! I walk aw de way to Arkansas and stopped where I is now. That almos’ seventy years ago. Moved in this old cabin jus’ befo’ de fust cold spell come down from de north.”

Venture’s mood was changing. Emotion rose in his throat like vomit.

“Now I is old. No friends or nothin’ jus’ cause I swore I never talk no mo’. People think I weird. Never saw my mammy or my brothers no mo’ neither. I kinda sad ‘bout’s that. I wonder what happen to dem? And now . . .

I don’t feel good mos’ de time, bones achin’, innards churnin’ ‘roun’ all de time. Sometimes I lay up in bed two, three days . . .cain’t hardly eat. Ain’t got nobody to hep. Only my mules. They no count to nobody.”

Was he giving up?

“I mighty tired. I done nuff tawkin’. Whew! Where this old wind come from? I freezin’. May, June, you good fo nuthin’ old mules, git! Go on back to de barn. I goin’ inside and res.’”

Venture stood on wobbly legs and shuffled through the door and closed it behind him. Thin wisps of black smoke rose from the lamplight near his bed, casting eerie shadows on the far wall. The fire had burned down and the room was cool.

Woodrow followed Venture. With a steady hand he draped a thin blanket around his sagging shoulders and led him across the room to his bed. Woodrow took off his shoes and placed them neatly under it. He laid him down like a baby easing his head onto his pillow and covered him with tattered quilts. It was not long before Venture’s eyes closed. His breathing shallowed. A wheezing sound came up and out of his mouth. He was asleep. Outside the wind moaned a mourning cry through Venture’s beloved oaks.

Woodrow awoke the next morning with the sun streaming through feed sack curtains that covered the window beside Venture’s bed. He had slept fitfully in Venture’s rocker, pulled close to the old man’s bed. He looked at his purple-black face. He touched his cheek. It was cold. He was not breathing. Sometime during the night Venture began his journey to another place.

It was noon on the fourth day. Woodrow was leaving. He fed the mules oats and turned them out. He opened the broken gate and closed it behind him. He walked down the path through knee high brittle-brown grass to the road below. Striding straight ahead, his shoes stirring puffs of dust, he could only hope that someone would see the wooden cross and what he had written upon it.

VENTURE WASHINGTON

SLAVE

Born 1850- Died 1934

A MAN OF FEW WORDS

_____________________________________

Written By Ron Richardson
July 22, 2003

Ron is a navy veteran, college graduate and retired air traffic controller. He ia a member of Oklahoma Writers Federation, Inc. He hosts a fiction writers critique group. He has been published by LITBITS, ESCI, Powder Burn Flash and Fiction on Line.

Bushwhacker Blues: A Long Crawl Over the Hills

Bushwhacker Blues: A Long Crawl Over the Hills
By J. Keith Jones

Oct. 20, 1863 – Marshall, North Carolina:

Battles raged in east Tennessee and north Georgia, but today Colonel Lawrence Allen’s concern was closer to his home in western North Carolina. He rode beside Major John Woodfin. Woodfin reached down and stroked Prince Hal’s mane. The sleek black stallion had carried him through many a hot battle. Woodfin had seen the elephant a number of times as had Allen. Allen had been sent down from Richmond then ordered by General Robert Vance to join his forces with Woodfin’s and lead them against George Kirk’s bushwhackers.

Kirk had banded together this bunch of deserters to form the Second North Carolina Mounted Infantry. This gang had terrorized the Confederate families of the mountain counties ever since. Allen had dealt with them before as had Woodfin. As the clerk of court in Marshall, Allen had seen many of them pass through his courtroom regularly before the war. As a lawyer in Asheville, Woodfin had no doubt dealt with some of them as well.

Woodfin grinned beneath his thick beard. He presented a dashing figure astride Prince Hal. Allen knew he was not nearly so handsome as his fellow officer, but both men’s soldiers would follow wherever they led. They had seen glory in Northern Virginia, but now their people needed them here.

The band worked their way through Jewell Hill, Stackhouse and Hurricane. Allen reined to a stop and glanced over at Woodfin. The Major stared down the road toward the French Broad River. Springs flowed just ahead near the river. The turnpike meandered beside a small shack alongside the stream on the opposite side of the river. They were shielded from the view of the shack by a slight crook in the road. Several bushwhackers milled about the ragged building.

Allen held up a hand and turned in his saddle to face his men. Giving the signal, he prodded his horse forward at a trot then spurred him to a gallop. They bore down on the shack, quickly capturing it. Allen hastened across the bridge with Woodfin and several men on his heels. Another stream ran along the opposite side of the river. It was covered in thick underbrush. Suddenly smoke belched from the small gully. He turned to see that the bridge was now blocked and the men were retreating in the direction of Marshall. Allen looked toward Woodfin. The two officers and seven privates were all that remained.

Allen waved his pistol toward a spot down the river away from the shots. His men returned fire as they galloped away. They soon found themselves against a steep mountain. They were in a protected spot for now, but that wouldn’t last long. My God! It’s nearly straight up, Allen thought, but it is the only way out. He knew that once they started up the hill they would be completely exposed. They must move quickly.

“John!” Allen shouted and pointed up the slope, “Up there, it’s the only way. Come on boys!” His horse struggled up the hill. Dirt kicked up and tree branches cracked all about him. A shot whizzed by his ear and he turned to see Woodfin tumble from his horse. Several of the other men were already down. “Yahh!” Allen spurred his horse harder, urging him up the incline.

Fallen trees and boulders littered the top of the hill. Allen worked his way through them, keeping low to avoid the shots. The fallen timber was heavier now and filtered out the fading light. Allen was separated from the few men who had made it. He wasn’t sure when their courses diverged. He paused and looked around, it was mostly quiet now. An occasional shot rang out in the distance and the sun sank below the horizon. The crackle of riders came through the brush. Allen couldn’t tell from where, it seemed to be all around. He had to get his bearings, which direction was Marshall? A crashing through the trees off to his side jerked him around. That was too close. They were about on him. Allen stuck his heel into his horse’s side and galloped off. A shot rang out and splintered a branch on a felled tree beside him. He reined his horse down into a holler, temporarily losing his pursuers. They would find him, this he was sure of.
The downed timber became so thick that his horse refused to go further. He must dismount… that was the only way. Allen grimaced as he climbed down. The bushwhackers were not far back. He had to keep moving. Capture would mean death. These unionists were not like the Yankee soldiers, they were more interested in profit and revenge than victory and Allen knew his head would occupy a prized space on any of their mantelpieces.

*

Colonel Allen lay still under a bush. The riders milled about just yards away now. They raised the alert when they found his horse. The dense brush and timber hampered their efforts like it had his progress, but they still grew closer. In the open he would already be a dead man. If he stayed here, it wouldn’t much matter. They would find him.

A rider dismounted. The horse’s breath blew loudly and the bushwhacker’s boots crunched on the twigs. Slow deliberate steps snapped sticks and crushed leaves in his direction. He gripped the butt of his pistol tightly, cradling the barrel in the crook of his left arm. He wouldn’t go without a fight. The man spit into the bush, tobacco juice landing by his head. Allen tensed, ready to fire, if he had the chance. Then the boots began to crunch in the opposite direction followed by the squeak of the saddle straining under the weight of a rider pushing himself up in the stirrups.

His heavy cavalry boots had to come off. The bushwhackers had been listening for their heavy crunching since he dismounted as surely as he knew when that scalawag had approached him. He reached down and quietly slipped them off and crawled away between the trees.

Two days passed with Allen hiding in the underbrush. He shivered as his stomach rumbled. Not a morsel of food and if not for the constant driving rain, he would not have had any water either. Much more of this and he would welcome a Yankee bullet. He had suffered two nights and it was dark again. The damned home Yankees patrolled the roads searching for him, so he had crept along the peaks and high ridges. Through bushes and scrub trees. He managed to find every briar, thorn and burr in the entire mountain range. Bushwhacker campfires dotted the hills. He stood and staggered across the uneven ground. Deep cuts crisscrossed the bottoms of his feet. Blood lined his tracks. The pain of each step kept him alert.

A cacophony drifted over a ridge about a hundred feet off to Allen’s left. He turned and listened then drifted toward the pale glow outlining the ridge. Laughs and shouts rolled over the hills. He crouched and peered through the trees. A crowd of blue clad bushwhackers danced around a roaring bonfire. They stopped as one tossed his hands about excitedly and spoke. The voice boomed, but Allen couldn’t make out what he said. The man threw his head back as they all laughed. Allen crept down the hill closer to the fire and hid behind a bush at the base of an oak tree. The loud man jumped up on a tree stump and began flapping his arms and threw his head back and crowed like a rooster.

Allen could now make out what the Rooster said next. He was bragging about someone they had killed. Allen struggled to control his breathing. The Rooster mocked how a young man’s father had pleaded with them to spare his son. He instinctively grasped his pistol. The Rooster crowed again then continued about how they had taken young Jesse Cranes away from his father’s house then killed him. Allen began to shake. He knew the Cranes. Jesse’s father had returned home on sick leave. Jesse was a good boy, but now…Murderers, Allen wanted to scream.
He pulled his pistol and took careful aim. Allen squeezed the trigger and the Rooster pitched face first into the fire. The others scattered from the fire, diving into the bushes. Allen smiled, looking around for another target. One cautiously stuck his head out and Allen took aim. He began to squeeze off the shot then thought better of it. No, he would give his position away.
“Did anybody see where it came from?”

“Damned rebel sniper.”

“Did anybody see him?”

“No, somebody come out and draw his fire so I can see where he is.”

“Do it yourself Bob. I ain’t getting myself kilt.”

Allen eased back over the ridge and scurried off in the opposite direction.
Sunrise found Lawrence Allen trudging into Marshall. The Colonel limped into town and collapsed with relief.

*

February 14, 1864 – Asheville, North Carolina:

Colonel Lawrence Allen lay awake. The moon filtered through the curtains of the hotel room casting shadows on the wall. A bed of coals smoldered in the fireplace. Allen interlaced his fingers behind his head watching the glow. It did little to fight off the night chill, but it was far better than sleeping on the ground with only one thin blanket. He had done plenty of that and would do more in the nights to come.

Deep lacerations had etched the bottoms of his feet. The sharp rocks and brambles of the hills had sliced through the soles nearly to the bone. The need for fresh recruits was dire and it was many days before he was able to wear his riding boots again so General Vance had ordered Allen to recruit replacements. His dedication to crush Kirk had driven Allen since his return. Many days and nights were spent in the saddle. He owed Woodfin and Jesse Cranes that.

Southern men going against their own kind… Allen ached to make them pay. He had two hundred ready to mount and ride at dawn. They would head west and drive the criminals out of North Carolina. He intended to pursue them across the Smokey Mountains and out of Tennessee if at all possible.
*
Hack Norton sat astride a horse. He was lucky to have it, many of the men still walked. They had taken all they could from the rebel families in the county. After they had killed and scalped Major Holcomb and that other damned rebel, James Arrington they caught old man James Garrett at his front gate and gunned him down. He had walked these hills seventy years, but the rebel sympathizer would do so no more.

While that old fool Garrett grew cold on the ground of his front yard, they paid a visit on old man William Peek. Peek had horses they needed. They took his shoes then forced him barefoot across the cold, hard ground of his pastures. Peek complained about the sharp rocks and Norton laughed at the blood stained foot prints. He put his boot against the old man’s rear and shoved, nearly knocking him to the ground. Next time you open your mouth it had better be to tell us where them horses are you old rebel! Norton cocked the hammer of his pistol for effect.

Norton had quickly taken possession of this horse for his own. He patted the mare’s head with an amused grin. He had taken his place on her back early that morning as they rode out of Warm Springs. Today the rebel citizens of Asheville would pay for their treason.

*

“Colonel,” the captain reined up beside Allen. “A small band of ‘em on the road below. Another ‘un about a mile back.”

“Is there a way we can slip around and flank them?”

“Yes sir,” he caught his breath, “there’s a pig path just beyond the next holler. Narrow, but passable.”

“Lead on Captain,” Allen nodded toward the trail ahead. “Lead on.”

*

Feb. 20, 1864 –near North Carolina/Tennessee line:

The first glow of daylight filtered into the camp. Allen and his men had selected this spot to bivouac due to its location between two roads. Now his pickets could watch both roads while the remainder rested. Allen didn’t want to stop, but the men were pushed past their limits. They had spent two days and nights in the saddle. Constant fighting, the men and horses were worn out.

After their dash on Sevierville, where they stampeded a large force of enemy cavalry, Allen began to realize he was too deep in enemy territory. So they began their withdrawal back into North Carolina. No sense pressing their luck. He really would have liked to ride all the way back to Asheville without stopping, but at 10:00 the night before, man and beast exhausted and navigating mountain passes in the dark, he gave the order to stop.

Allen should have trusted his judgment and put more miles between his force and the bushwhackers, but how could he have pushed the men any further? Even so, if he had, he would not be awakened with the news that they were cut off by Kirk’s regiment. Well, it was done now. He buttoned his uniform jacket and smiled. It was important to present an image for the men. If he looked beaten, they would all wear defeat into battle. Allen could not have that. The men were formed and he climbed upon his horse. He rode up and down the line before his troops, studying them as he rode. Allen made eye contact with each man in the front, giving each a confident look. Colonel Lawrence Allen resplendent in his full uniform stopped in the middle and turned his horse to face his men. He drew his saber and pointed out toward the woods. Through those trees, the enemy awaited and he would give them a warm reception.

“We will cut through their lines,” he pulled back on his reins causing his horse to rear slightly. He twisted his face angrily and looked from one end of the line to the other, stopping to study each man, “or this day our wives will be widows!”
The men erupted into cheers. The angst and gloom the news had brought was now replaced with eager anticipation. Allen smiled, but kept the determined set to his eyes. This would not be easy, but he must not let the men see him show fear. He wheeled his horse to the right when the hoots began to subside.

“Captain Anderson!” He shouted.

“Yes sir!” Anderson called out.

“Take your men through those woods and engage the enemy in their front.” Allen looked sternly at Anderson and eased his horse closer. “When you are fully engaged, I will attempt to flank them to the right if practicable. If not, we will attempt to escape. In either event when I do so, you are to drop back and fall in behind us.” Anderson’s head bobbed slightly. “Do you understand Captain?”

“Yes sir!”

“We are depending on you Captain. I know you will not let us down.” Allen smiled, “You may deploy your men.”

Anderson departed with his company. Colonel Allen gave the order for the rest of the men to follow him as he eased his mount forward at a walk. They maneuvered on through the woods; he looked about trying to hide his anxiety. Suddenly the forest began to crash and thunder a few hundred yards to his front. Anderson had found the enemy. Allen pressed on at a slow pace. The bang of rifles and the crack of pistols filled the air. His horse continued forward, his men’s eyes shifting around nervously. Allen looked back giving them a confident nod. The battle was now nearly in sight. He could just see the flash of the guns accompanied by an occasional glimpse of gray or blue. He picked up the pace slightly. They were now in full sight of the enemy line. The bushwhackers were rallying on Anderson’s front. Allen saw a bushwhacker officer pointing his way and shouting instructions at his reserves. The remainder charged forward into Anderson’s line.

The Colonel held up a hand and looked around, then ordered a right face. Once the line turned, Allen charged forward at full pace. The ground did not lend itself to the flanking attack he had planned, but there was an open road before him. He looked back. Anderson had fallen in behind him as ordered. He booted his horse. The beast snorted, steam shooting out his nostrils into the cold morning. Ahead the road threaded through a gap in the mountain. Allen’s heart sank when he saw it fill with blue coated riders. He pulled his pistols, pointing them forward.
“Open up on ‘em boys,” Allen began firing first one then the other.

His men fired as they rode. Allen kicked his horse pushing it on faster. Rifles flashed from the gap. Bullets zipped past him and over his head. He pulled himself lower, pressing his face into his horse’s mane and continued firing. First one pistol clicked on an empty chamber then the other. The Yankees were now less than fifty yards to his front. He felt his left foot sting sharply. Allen pulled his sword from the scabbard and pointed it forward. One of the bushwhackers moved forward to meet him. Allen swung with a slashing motion catching the man across the belly. The bluecoat tumbled to the ground. Two more of the home Yankees rushed forward toward Allen. Allen slashed the one to the left across the throat. Blood flew through the air, spattering the horses’ coats. The other man turned slashing Allen’s right thigh with his saber. Allen howled in pain. His hand went to his leg and he saw blood streaming from his left boot as well. The bushwhacker raised his saber to strike Allen again. One of Allen’s soldiers caught the man in the back of the head with the barrel of his rifle. The rider pitched face first to the road and lay still. The other bushwhackers scattered.

Allen urged his men forward into the now disarrayed enemy. The gray coated men ripped on through leaving the road clogged with bodies. Speed would be their friend. Allen knew this. They crested a rise in the road and he looked back to see Anderson form his men up along the side. They fired a volley then continued on down the road. The rearguard would do so several more times until the bushwhackers ceased their chase.

Allen struggled to stay in the saddle. The woods seemed to drift by. He turned to look at the trooper beside him. He seemed to be looking through gauze. Allen couldn’t give up now. He had to get his men out. They needed more space. The Colonel rode on, hanging onto the neck of his horse as it charged along with the others. How long they had ridden, he was not sure, but finally the huffing horses slowed. A soldier reached out and took the reins of his horse. Allen felt like he was swimming in molasses. His vision blurred and darkened as if it was midnight, but he knew it was mid day. Hands tugged at his arms pulling him from his horse. He tried to stand and heard a yelp as he set down on his left foot and could feel it squish as blood flowed out of a hole in the boot. He wondered whose scream he had heard, then realized it was his own.

Allen heard a stream flowing beside him as he lay on the ground. A soldier took off his shirt and tore it into strips and began wrapping them around his leg. Allen gritted his teeth and turned to look at the gurgling water as another trooper pulled his boot from his left foot.

“It ain’t stopping,” Allen heard the soldier say.

He thought he heard another say, “He’ll bleed to death like this.”

“The crick, put it in the cold water,” another said.

Pain radiated up his leg as rough hands tugged. Another set of hands slipped under his shoulders lifting him up then setting him down beside the stream. His foot was set into the water. The iciness of the mountain stream nearly took his breath. He gritted his teeth and the light faded to black.

*

Lawrence Allen rested in a horse drawn hack. He had spent the first day being dragged on a crude litter his men had thrown together for him. They had obtained the hack late the previous night. Most of the men remained in the field continuing the fight, but Allen knew that his battle was over.

_____________________________________________________

J. Keith Jones, a native of Georgia who lives in North Carolina, graduated from the University of South Carolina and is the author of one novel, "In Due Time," and the editor of "The Boys of Diamond Hill: The Lives and Civil War Letters of the Boyd Family of Abbeville County South Carolina."

Mary Ann Walker’s Urn

Mary Ann Walker’s Urn

Mary Ann Walker’s tiny shop sat, amid a sea of larger, more imposing shops, on the east side of the plaza in downtown Highland, a Dallas suburb. She’d bought the business early spring and had already moved into the narrow storefront. She’d even replaced the old sign, “Aunt Latesia’s Quilts and Things,” with “Mary Ann’s Antique Shop.” A plain name like her plain shop. No script. No gold. No fancy spelling. She’d gone for the plain ever since grade school when Dollie Jean Bedford accused her of thinking she was better than everybody else. That’s when she dropped the “e” from Anne.

Betty Ruth Stowers, owner of an exclusive shop across the plaza and Mary Ann’s best friend, studied the new sign. “What in the world do you mean?” she said, waving her arms in two big arcs. “You have no retail experience.” Betty Ruth’s face changed from ruddy to crimson.

“I’ve been watching you,” Mary Ann said, hands on hips. No way she’d let Betty Ruth take up where George had left off. It was a new day, a new season. Dogwoods were blooming in square, raised planters all around the plaza’s gurgling fountain.

“I’m not sure you shouldn’t be committed.” Betty Ruth continued.

“Well, I am: to a year’s lease.” She wouldn’t tell that she’d secured the lease with George’s small life insurance policy. But why was she feeling guilty? It wasn’t like she’d scrimped on his funeral. She had even picked out a top-of-the-line casket for him: all copper with a silk lining.

Betty Ruth persisted. “Besides, your sign’s all wrong,” she said. “It should read “antiques” with an “s.”

“Not so,” Mary Ann said, holding her ground. “This way, I only have to have one antique. I don’t want to be accused of false advertising.” George’s rickety oak rocking chair, his most prized possession, was definitely antique, and it sat in the now-sparkling front window of the shop beside a small marble-topped table circa 1950. And, yes, she’d be glad to get rid of the chair that, with every squeak, reminded her of him.

Betty Ruth, shop-owner ire in the air, scanned the room’s inventory and, without another word, slammed the front door and sashayed across the mall.

It was good to get tired and then rest her sixty-five year old body, Mary Ann thought as she got back to cleaning. But, maybe Betty Ruth was right: she might be crazy. The accountant’s call the week after the funeral said it all. She had no money, and here she was Windexing dirty glassware. What had she been thinking? Well, for one thing, that she might actually go out of her mind after George died, some nights waking mid-dream, had he called out? She’d be halfway up, realize that his bed was empty. His constant complaining would almost be a welcome break to the silence in their split-level house in the suburbs.

She soothed the fear. It was her glassware and who knew what could happen in a year? She might even make a clean break: sell the house, move into the apartment above the shop. But how long could she climb the stairs? A bed downstairs, who’d know if she slept there? A wardrobe for her clothes. A coffee pot and microwave. She could take a whore’s bath, as Mama had called it. Mary Ann cheered: both at her plan and the thought of her mama whose straightforward talk had always set George off, but now it didn’t matter.

The two Persians would make good shop cats. But what about her stuff? She’d sell it, without a thought*everything but her box collection. Some wooden, some silver, some ceramic. New, old. Big, small. Expensive, cheap. She’d bought what she liked, until George said, “That’s enough,” and threw in the trash the little silver pill box, a last purchase.

Mary Ann had had a couple of sales when she found the untagged items in a corner: a rose dresser set, a Haviland bowl, some 1950’s costume jewelry. These were the things Latesia had mentioned. The things some man had brought in just before she’d sold the shop. What had she said about the man? Mary Ann couldn’t quite remember why he’d sold the objects.

She forgot all about Latesia and the man when, under a pile of linens, she found the covered jar, in bright blues and orange with birds and flowers swirling around its fat middle. She gasped, went down on one knee, and gently lifted the urn. Sixteen inches tall, she estimated, a funny animal atop, lid stuck. No matter. Hardly breathing, she wiped the urn and imagined it on the shelf with her finest porcelain boxes. Hadn’t she seen something similar in one of Latesia’s books?

Shortly, dreading*hoping*she paged through the book: Japanese Imari. There, on page sixty-two: a 1700’s Genroku (whatever that was) fifteen inches tall. She eyed her prize. Fifteen inches*with or without the finial? A foo dog of brown matte glaze. Yes, foo dog. Brown glaze? Maybe. The price? She gasped again. The urn was worth boo-coos. Mary Ann felt faint, wiped her face, remembered a diamond worth thousands found in an old kitchen cabinet. What, too, of the original copy of the Constitution someone discovered behind a cheap framed print? And here she, Mary Ann Walker, widowed, impoverished and in the sunset of life, had been visited with similar fortune. She was reaping the good she’d done in putting up with George.

What should she do with the jar? Hide it? That was probably best, until she could show it to some big auction house, but could she really sell it? This prize of all prizes? Furthermore, what about Latesia in the old folk’s asylum, as Mama called it. And the man who’d sold the stuff? What obligation did she have to him? Both should have recognized the Imari and it’s value. Latesia had been sick*maybe she’d give her a couple hundred dollars, but Mary Ann knew she had no responsibility to a man so insensitive, so uncaring. She didn’t even know his name. So she placed the urn in a locking curio cabinet midway back in the shop until she could sort things out.

 

“Ah, yes, may I see this piece in the cabinet?” a man asked a couple of weeks later. At last someone wanted to see the Imari. Mary Ann had already sized up the man: sophisticated if a little thread worn, some six feet tall with silver hair*collar length*and a handlebar mustache. Probably he was about seventy-two or three. She had a hard time guessing ages now, as seventy was the new sixty. She bothered all afternoon that he reminded her of someone. Only in that twilight before sleep did it come to her. Yes, Lorne Green or Anthony Quinn. She went to sleep quite contented with her new life. Two finds. The urn*ah, the urn*and a customer who appreciated it. In fact, the man seemed to have been searching for something like it.

“You collect Imari?” she’d asked as she had unlocked the case.

“Yea, something like that,” he’d whispered.

She stepped away and kept watch from behind a 1920’s walnut dresser. First the man stared reverently at the urn and then, hesitantly, carefully, picked it up. Mary Ann tensed. What if he dropped it? He didn’t and Mary Ann saw him close his eyes and softly stroke the jar. After a few minutes he carefully replaced it on the shelf, shut the door, and turned the key. Mary Ann stepped from her hiding place, smiled into his eyes, and immediately felt the connection. He loved the urn. Touching his arm, she said softly, “I feel the same way as you.”

He wiped his eyes. “Really?” he asked. “What about?”

“The urn, of course.”

“Oh, the urn,” he said, glancing back toward it, his eyes misting. “Er, what do you want for it?” Were his eyes begging? Surely he knew he couldn’t possibly afford it.

“Oh, I think I’ll keep it for a while. I just like to look at it.” She couldn’t part with it, no matter how badly he wanted it.

“I’ll be back,” he said at the door. Their eyes met again.

“It’ll be here,” she promised, her voice high-pitched. When the man glanced over his shoulder, Mary Ann felt as though she’d just propositioned him. In the moment, she could feel him touching her lovingly, as he had touched the urn. Her body sent a response she’d not felt in years. Standing before the curio with the urn, she folded her arms and hugged herself, knowing that something wonderful had happened. Why hadn’t George loved her?

 

By late spring with the dogwoods leafed out in bright chartreuse, Mary Ann had the shop spotless and divided into small room-like settings, giving the shop, with limitations, the feel of a real house*her home now, the Woodcrest house just storage and a place to sleep. Her favorite “room” was the little parlor near the curio where she could watch the Imari and ponder her good fortune. Betty Ruth had noticed the difference. She’d asked, “Just what are you so dreamy-eyed about?”

“Just tired, I guess,” Mary Ann had said, truthfully, for she wasn’t sleeping well, but she’d never tell her luscious dream of the morning when her alarm clock sounded. She’d groaned. She and “Lorne”*she called him “Lorne”*had been sitting in the little parlor with their knees touching, finishing cups of tea when “Lorne,” with a body-stirring smile, had gone into the bath room, then reappeared almost instantly wrapped only in a towel, his hair wet and hanging tantalizingly over one eye. His chest, muscular, glistened with drops of water, and Mary Ann could see that under the towel his stomach was flat and….That was when the bell at the front door…well, the alarm clock…chimed.

Sure enough that night “Lorne” dropped the towel, but the bed’s movement had been Ralph and Alice, her two cats, fighting. Awakened, she lay there, flushed and angry. As George would say, her pump was primed but the bucket was left hanging empty.

Mary Ann lived and relived the dream and then worried, what if “Lorne” never came back? But what if he did? The new self-assured Mary Ann cleaned out her savings and bought new clothes, styles George would declare outlandish for an “elderly woman,” but she didn’t feel elderly. A hair rinse the red of years past made her skin look soft and creamy, so the mirror in the shop’s shadowy bathroom told her. She’d even shaved her legs.

She rearranged the parlor to configure to her dream: the two chairs moved to within a knee’s touch. Naughty, you’re so naughty, she thought and smiled at the thought of a towel-less “Lorne.” She’d offer him something to drink*what would it be? Coca-Cola? Definitely not beer. George was a beer man. Tea? Yes, her dream was right. “Lorne” would like tea.

But first, she’d have him write his name in the fancy register she’d bought at the bridal shop across the mall. After all, she should know his real name. For nighttime perusal, she’d take his picture with the digital camera bought with her grocery money. She could stand to lose a few pounds at one hundred fifteen.

One night George messed up Mary Ann’s dream, when it was he and not “Lorne,” who came to her bed, but with several days of concentrated effort, she regained the old passion for “Lorne,” and two weeks later when he came in, she was in full excitement. It was early June, with the dogwood trees leafed out deep green, when he casually signed the register. He’d even asked her name, hadn’t he? But knowing each other so well, shouldn’t he have talked more and maybe made a pass or two? She knew how little beads formed across his lip when he was excited, how his breath smelled of mint when he kissed, the way the back of his neck felt when she caressed it. She even could see the black mole between his shoulders. He’d better get it checked. That’s the way George’s cancer had started. Just what was his sense of her?

But then, they had been interrupted by a female customer who wore a fake leopard knit jump suit which, Mary Ann noticed, cupped under her ample behind. Mary Ann was chagrinned when the woman (she was no lady) pushed in close to “Lorne” at picture taking time. She had no right to be so close.

“Leopard Woman” collected Hummels, so she said, and Mary Ann rushed to show her five in a cabinet and be done with her. But the woman, with bright red lips and fake eyelashes, wasted precious minutes denigrating Mary Ann’s Hummels. They were Japanese fakes, she said. By the time the woman finished looking and started to the door, “Lorne” had cut short his time with the Imari. He followed the woman to the door, reached around her and, smiling lightly, opened it for her.

Mary Ann nearly broke down in tears. She and “Lorne,” had lost precious minutes because of this classless woman. But when was he going to take charge and profess his love for her: that love expressed in their mutual devotion to the urn? At least she’d seen the longing in his eyes when he’d said, “I’ll see you next time.” And hadn’t he urgently pressed her arm? Yes, she was sure he had. But what should she do? Stretch a fake zebra skin leotard over her boney behind?

Mary Ann eagerly picked up the registry and read. “Gregory Wallace.” His name in his own handwriting*and with curlicues around it. She almost scratched out The Fat Hussy’s name where she’d signed under his. “Jeanine Gillispie.”

The man’s name fairly sang in Mary Ann’s head and confirmed everything she felt about him. “Gregory Wallace.” He was sophisticated, sensuous, a gentle lover. He’d make a wonderful husband. “Mary Ann Wallace,” she repeated over and over. “W’s” were always last. “Alston.” Why couldn’t his name be “Alston”? Silly, any name would be wonderful as long as it was his. She went to sleep that night with a photograph torn in half on her pillow and the feel of his hands on her bare arm. And on her shoulders, her waist….

Weeks passed. Business was pretty good. Maybe Mary Ann wasn’t crazy to have bought the shop. She had two regular customers. That woman, Jeanine “What‘s her name?,” whom she dreaded to see walk in. Jeanine would look around, complain, never buy. Then, Gregory came in every few days. He’d go to the curio cabinet, hold the urn, and then leave. Mary Ann couldn’t get him anywhere near the chairs in the “parlor.” Oh, he stopped to chat, and Mary Ann spoke to him about the Imari in lover’s terms, but he never caught on. He was such a gentleman*and so busy, rushing out to…well, whatever it was he did. 

Mary Ann cinched her waist, padded her bra, but Gregory’s constraint outmatched her seduction. She was quite desperate by the time the bricks on the plaza sizzled with heat and the dogwood trees drooped, water starved, despite automatic sprinklers.

On toward July the Fourth, Mary Ann sat, as usual, in one of the chairs in the “parlor” when in walked Gregory. She was waiting for him when he closed the curio door. “It’s a holiday, so we’re treating customers,” she said. “Sit here, Gregory, in my little parlor and I’ll get you something. Tea all right?”

“I’ll take a beer if you have one.”

Mary Ann was surprised at his choice, but she’d not quibble. She was thinking how George had come through for once. How she was glad that she’d included the last two beers when she’d cleaned out the refrigerator at home and brought the leftovers to the shop.

She handed Gregory a can as she inched her way into the tight space between the chairs and sat down. She’d been right: their knees did touch. Just then the front door opened and Jeanine came in wearing shorts that rode up in her crack. What man would be interested in that trollop? Mary Ann wondered and rolled her eyes at Gregory. “I’ll get rid of this customer and join you in a minute.” Gregory paled*with excitement, she thought as she inched her way out again, placing her hand on his shoulder for support.

“I’ve just run out of tea,” Mary Ann said to Jeanine. I really should respect my customer. Offer her something. After all, the woman, fat butt or not, seemed lonely: coming in all the time but never buying anything. Mary Ann unlocked the cabinet to retrieve a “first bee mark” Hummel she’d bought the day before: a little girl with an umbrella.

“I don’t care for anything,” Jeanine said in a whiney voice as she glanced back, saw Gregory with the beer. I really should offer her one, Mary Ann thought as the woman pushed the Hummel away. “Look, I’m not interested,” Jeanine said suddenly, her voice sharp. “I’ve got to go. That Hummel is way too high.”

“Well, I hope you’ll come back soon anyway.” Mary Ann said. Not really. Here I’ve tried to please her and she can’t be pleased.” She pushed the thought away as she was tingling with excitement now that she could get back to Gregory, but he had set his beer can on the table, left the tête-à-tête setting and rushed toward the front. The door had just closed when he leaned across the counter. 

“Thanks for the beer, but I have to go doctor’s appointment, you know.” Deep lines had etched themselves across his face.

Mary Ann’s heart clinched at the sight. “Oh, are you all right?” The mole, she thought and, still holding the Hummel, hurried behind him to the door. She couldn’t lose him. Not now. They’d just found each other.

“I hope so,” he said and let the door slam. She paced back and forth and, teary-eyed, watched him race across the plaza a few feet behind Jeanine. Finally Mary Ann placed the Hummel on the table beside George’s rocking chair.

What a wonderful man, cancer-stricken, but carrying on, Mary Ann thought as she returned to the parlor setting, ran her hand along the back of Gregory’s chair, relived their few moments together. The beer can sat on the table where he’ d set it. She grabbed it up. Just as she had feared, a big white circle marred the table top. But that was okay. She’d get the mayonnaise, rub it out. She paused. The beer can. She gasped, held it out, stared at it. His hand …his lips. His lips had touched….Hand shaking, she brought the can to her lips, tipped it, swirled the beer into her mouth. Yuk. Luke warm. The beer was lukewarm. Flat.

That night she dreamed that Gregory brought the urn with him to her bed, laid it between them. She had just started to remove the lid when he laughed and pulled away, letting the urn roll toward the edge of the bed. 

Then weeks passed and no Gregory. Mary Ann worried over the dream and what could have happened to him. Was he throwing up with the cancer treatments? She should be there. If only he’d drop his middle class prudery. Didn’t he know that she’d marry him, even if he was sick? Desperate, she carried her camera across the plaza to Betty Ruth.

“No,” Betty Ruth said. “I don’t know either of them, but she came in my shop last week.”

That must have been the day, Mary Ann remembered, when Jeanine had come in and wandered around the shop, pausing at the curio with the urn. Mary Ann softened. A second Imari fan? Before she’d had a chance to ask, Jeanine pushed past her and walked quickly to the door. Mary Ann averted her eyes from where Jeanine’s leopard jump suit strained at the seams. Mary Ann was sorry for the woman, as she really was quite pathetic.

August came and went. September turned the tree leaves on the plaza to gold. Mary Ann paced the floor, rearranged the shop, sat in “her” chair across from “Gregory’s.” She vacillated. Some days she could see herself bathing his face between kisses. Others, she spent their time together kicking his knees between slaps to his face. How dare him stay away, keeping her uninformed about how he was doing? One desperate morning when dusting the Imari, she considered slamming it to the floor. It’d serve Gregory right to come in and find his precious jar smashed. Instead, she set the Imari on the wobbly table in the front window beside the little Hummel. That would show him. He would panic when he saw it there.

Mary Ann wound up at her desk. What was she doing? Spiting Gregory, over the thing that had brought them together? And him dying with cancer. She decried herself as wretched, selfish, uncaring. Dots swirling in front of her eyes, she had just put her head on the desk when Gregory, quite disheveled with jacket tossed across his shoulder, his face scarlet and covered in moisture, rushed in and headed straight for the curio. “Where is it?” he demanded, turning to her, his face wild. “Where is it?”

Her head clearing, Mary Ann got up, rushed to him and, ignoring the damp of his shirt, its odor, grabbed him around the middle. “Calm down, my love. It’s here. It’s here,” she cried against his chest. “And I’m going to let you have it. I was so selfish to keep the urn from you. I’m giving it to you.” She kissed one side of his face, then the other and was about to kiss his mouth when he pulled away. His breath scorched her face.

“What in God’s name are you doing?” he asked and stepped back, his face distorted.

“I know everything,” Mary Ann said, “about the cancer. About everything. I’ll take care of you, see you through this….”

Gregory caught Mary Ann by the shoulders. “What cancer?”

“The mole.”

His eyes wide, mouth agape, he stared, then gasped, “What mole?”

“The one on your back.”

“You crazy woman. There’s no mole on my back. I don’t have cancer.” He grimaced, put his hands to his head, shook it.

He was lying to protect her. Mary Ann knew it. She had to get through to him. “I’m not a innocent child. I’m a mature woman with desires just like you. Take me now. Take me here.” She looked around for a sofa, a table. Something not too hard. I really should lock the front door, she thought.

Gregory raised his hands toward her. Her chest hardened, cut off her breath, as she looked at something terrible in his eyes. “My god, woman, you are nuts.” He glanced around the shop. “Where’s the urn, goddammit? I’ll pay you whatever you ask. Just get out of my life.”

“There,” Mary Ann said, keeping her voice calm and pointing toward the front. He didn’t mean to curse at her like this. It was the cancer talking. She’d calm him down and everything would be all right. She’d done it often enough with George. “There,” she said, “on the table by the rocking chair.”

Relief swept across Gregory’s face and he charged around her, headed to the front of the shop and the urn. Mary Ann followed a few steps behind. This is all just a misunderstanding, she thought. Just as they approached the table, Jeanine Gillispie*always Jeanine*erect, determined, entered. Any other time Mary Ann would have been glad to see her. Well, tolerated her, anyway.

“I have a deal for you on that Hummel,” Mary Ann shrieked and tried to slip past Gregory. She must cover for him, keep Jeanine from seeing him in such a state. Gregory, his eyes riveted toward the front, pushed Mary Ann hard and she stumbled. From her knees, she watched as the two pounced on the table simultaneously, causing it, the urn and the Hummel all to teeter. Gregory grabbed for the urn, and Jeanine, Mary Ann thought, grabbed for the Hummel. “Be careful,” she shouted. Just as Gregory almost had the jar in hand, Jeanine grabbed it away from him. The Hummel splattered to the floor.

Silence reigned and time stood still as Jeanine and Gregory stepped back. Jeanine, eyes locked on Gregory’s face, smiled, a victor in battle. Gregory stood frozen, the vanquished.

“I told you to quit coming here to see her,” Jeanine shouted, her bosom rising, falling rapidly under a tight t-shirt with a growling tiger outlined in glitter. What is this? Mary Ann wondered. Jeanine and Gregory? And they are fighting over me? She’d never had two guys fighting over her, and now she was the “other woman.” How delicious! Then, Mary Ann, realizing Jeanine’s intention, stumbled to her feet and, stretching out her hands, tried to intercept Jeanine before she could act. She would do what Gregory couldn’t. But it was too late. “No,” she cried as Jeanine, eyes bulleted toward Gregory, opened her hands. The urn crashed to the floor, exploding into a thousand pieces. 

There goes my life, Mary Ann thought, scrunching up head to chest, arms over her head, as a gray fog rose up like smoke from the rubble, covering everything in its path.

“Couldn’t get over Margaret.” Jeanine’s lip curled, mockingly. “I told you’d I’d smash her to smithereens.” By now Jeanine was shaking a fist toward Gregory, who, his face contorted in agony, had fallen to the floor and was trying to scoop up the gray dust with his hands. Jeanine watched him briefly and then with a satisfied nod toward Mary Ann, turned and strutted out the front door.

Mary Ann brushed the gray powder from her face and saw Gregory rise, stare, first at the vibrating front door and, then, at the mess on the floor. His chin fell to his chest and tears boiled down his cheeks like rivers through gray-hot lava.

Shocked, disconcerted, Mary Ann raked with her shoe at a piece of the urn at her feet. What had just happened? The lid, the foo dog. She picked up the little chipped figure and, careful of its jagged edges, rolled it over in her hand. Mary Ann’s stomach retched. Not fine porcelain, just cheap ceramic. She was going to be sick. Forget me, she thought. Gregory was the important one. Here was a man who needed comforting if she’d ever seen one. Widowed. left alone to fight the cancer, attacked by a crazy woman….She would take care of him to the very end.

She paused, glanced out at the plaza. Winter was coming. No time to waste. Then, looking through the gray haze between them, spoke. “Oh, Gregory, darling, come on back and let me get you a beer.” It was fresh, bought that day.

She waited just long enough to see him turn to follow.

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Rena McClure Taylor holds Bachelor and Master degrees in education, has taught school and owned an antiques shop. She has studied creative writing at SMU and is a member of Writer’s Garret in Dallas.

Fat Women Walking

Fat Women Walking

My wife, Jo, and I were driving to church last Wednesday evening when we disagreed on something so she began to straighten me out, which I need for her to do on a regular basis, at least she thinks so. When this happens my usual tactic is to try to change the subject by pointing out something in view that might be remotely interesting or asking her something about our grandchildren. Any issue involving one of our grandchildren generally will redirect her thoughts and soften her so that her lecture is shortened. This time however we were passing in front of Barton's pasture just around the corner from our house and I responded to her lecture by saying with excitement, "Hey, look!!!, there's three donkeys in Barton's pasture, that could be a lucky sign." She responded sharply, "Don't try changing the subject!!!", but she quickly finished her correction of my errant ways and inquisitively asked, "Just what did you mean? Three donkeys could be a lucky sign?"

My explanation was that we always looked for signs of potential good luck just before going fishing and Randy & I were going fishing the next day. “Well, that sounds sort of superstitious or silly to me,” said she. I told her that the idea went back to when a group of us were going to Pope's Ferry on the Ocmulgee one morning and we talked about how our friend Troy always looks for positive signs to indicate that any time at all was a good time to go fishing. Drew had observed on that occasion that Troy didn't need much of a sign to decide it was a good time to go fishing. He could just maybe, for instance, see a bird fly by, and say, “There’s a bird flying by, that’s a good sign we ought to go fishing.” I went on to explain that on the day Danny caught a particularly big fish, we had seen two fat women walking their dogs in the dark as we were heading to the river, therefore we always are looking, hoping to see fat women walking dogs in the dark as we go fishing.
As we drove along towards church, I told Jo that there had been some bad signs identified along the way, like one day I hit a buzzard with my truck as the vulture flew up off the road kill on which the vulture was feasting as we headed to the river. We all noted at the time that it might be a lucky sign, however that fishing day proved to be as nasty to us as that road kill looked as we gave it one more flattening as we went by. Still, I had hope that three donkeys in a field might be a good luck sign.

I called Randy right then and reported seeing the donkeys hoping to encourage him. Never one to need any encouragement, Randy was already excited about our planned trip to the river the next day. However, our trip the following day unfortunately proved to be filled with worse luck than the day I hit the buzzard. Why do I say that? I thought you would never ask.
Soon after we started fishing, Randy and I split up to fish down either side of an island, when we met back up Randy had his kayak turned upside down having knocked a hole in the keel about the size of his thumb. He was poking some Styrofoam pool noodle material into the hole but it but it didn't look like that kind of patch would work. I was at the time floating high and dry in my kayak which was riding on three new patches that I had constructed with epoxy glue the night before and I was cocky about how well they would hold. The kayak dealer had professionally welded two holes before my previous trip and they had both failed on that trip so I had decided to try my hand with a homemade remedy. I did have some water weld epoxy and with that Randy patched his boat.

Though it was early in the float, I was rather pleased with my patched up boat but noticed that I had lost my soft cooler with all my 8 bottles of water somewhere behind the island. Randy gave me a couple bottles of sports drink to get me through the day, and we went on downriver.

Shortly after the first two unlucky events, a dark cloud showed up and before we could take cover, we were in a driving rain storm for an hour with some high lightning and deafening thunder. Kayaking on a river in a Georgia thunderstorm can be a frightening experience.

The next bit of misfortune came my way. I lost what would have been my biggest fish of the year due to the fish dragging my kayak so close to a log pile that I couldn't keep it out of the driftwood where it hung my lure on a log and pulled loose.

We both noted about that time that our patches were failing and both boats were taking on water.

When we thought the worst of the weather was over the storm doubled down becoming even more threatening so we decided to make a run for it and paddled through the best fishing water of the trip without even fishing.

Despite our emptying the boats of their accumulated water they both filled up before getting down the biggest set of shoals that we had to negotiate before getting to the truck we had parked downstream. I managed to get down the steep shoals okay but Randy flipped his waterlogged kayak in the most violent part of the shoals.

Somewhere coming down the river, I heard a cracking sound and felt a weakness come into my paddle, like if I pulled on it too hard it would bend, when ordinarily it was very stout. I checked it when I got to the truck and there was a big crack under the sleeve where the two halves met in the middle. This was a lightweight but heavy duty paddle, not an El Cheapo, costing well over a hundred dollars for a new one.

Before we got to the take out landing, my kayak hull finally filled with water and slowly sank to sit on the bottom with me in it. The river at that point was shallow so the boat simply sank about 18 inches and sat on the bottom with the river running over the top of the deck. I got out and towed it by hand on over to the landing.

When we got to the take out landing the weather cleared up so that our furious paddling proved unnecessary and we could have fished more and been safe, not that we were burning the fish up, I think I caught one fish and Randy got skunked.

Getting back up river to where we had left a vehicle at the starting point went well but as I arrived back to my home, Randy called telling me he had just hit a deer with his vehicle. I don't know the extent of the damage but I think anytime you hit a deer with a Fred Flintstone car like Randy’s PT Cruiser it could be serious.

No matter what anyone tells you, for Ocmulgee River fishermen, two fat women walking dogs in the dark is a far better sign of potential good luck than three donkeys standing in Barton’s pasture anytime. I’d rather have a simple bird flying by, or would even settle for hitting a buzzard with my truck as a sign to indicate the potential luck of a fishing trip. The next time I see three donkeys in a field while I am planning on going fishing, I’m not.

Bill Prince

March 20, 2011 © All Rights Reserved

THINKING ABOUT WALKING TO THE MAILBOX

THINKING ABOUT WALKING TO THE MAILBOX
by Gary Carter

I reckon it’s safe to go check the mailbox now since I’m pretty sure I heard Mister Baker’s car stop a couple of minutes ago. Just wish it wasn’t such a long walk out to the road and back. Course when I came to this house as a freshly married girl it was just a hop, skip and jump. Now that age is creaking my bones, it seems a whole lot longer.

And it might be bitter cold out there today. Sure looks like it from here—dingy sky, wind ruffling the white tops of that ugly old grass plant, some South American thing that Leon put in there out of the blue one day a couple of years ago, thinking I was gonna like it. As I recollect, it must’ve been about two months before he got killed. Which I have to admit, even now, that was one that shocked me, stopped me slap cold in the middle of my day and put me to bed. Of all people I had to hear it from, it was Lab, who’s absolutely worthless as a passer of news, has been ever since we were little. Except when he had something on me to tell Mama.

But this time, like near about every other time, he just wandered in the backdoor and sat down at the kitchen table, lit a cigarette, leaned back and looked like he was passing time. He’d been working cause his shirt was filthy, and also I knew he was supposed to be putting a new drain pipe into Eloise Watkin’s kitchen sink cause she told me at church a couple of Sundays ago that it hadn’t worked right since her youngest one rolled half a dozen cherry tomatoes down it. Lab might as well been asking for a cup of coffee the way he dropped the news.

“Heard this morning that Leon Lomax got himself killed last night,” he said to the ceiling, sounding like he was just about too tired to get all the words out. That was it. He didn’t say another word, probably wouldn’t have if I hadn’t plopped down real hard at the table and looked him square on.

“What’d you say?” I asked him, hoping like you always do that I’d heard him wrong, that my ears had been playing tricks on me. But he repeated himself, I listened hard, thought about it, and then had to ask how.

“Well, Jerry Boyles—you know, the deputy—told me this morning down at the diner that Leon was working on his tractor’s front axle last night in his barn and it must’ve slipped off the jack and pinned him to the floor. Jerry said the sheriff figured it must’ve broken his neck but Doc Willis said that it crushed his throat and cut off his air and suffocated him. Worse thing is Doc said it looked like it probably didn’t crush him all at once but kind of slow. He said it probably took him awhile to die.”

That’s when I got up and went into my bedroom. I pulled the curtains, though I remember it was so gloomy out it didn’t really seem to make much difference. I laid down, didn’t even kick off my house slippers and yanked the bedspread over me. I didn’t cry cause I’m one of those women that just don’t let loose a flood of tears at the drop of a hat. My Mama was like that too. I remember when Daddy died she never shed one tear, at least not that I know of, and I kept a pretty good eye on her since I was the oldest.
Anyway, my two brothers were both like Daddy, all emotional and broke up, holding back and then every so often letting loose. Daddy was like that. Why, he’d get all misty every time the choir would sail real sweet into “Precious Memories.” He told me once, after I probably asked him why, that it was his Mama’s favorite hymn and that every time he heard it he might as well have been sitting back in the home place up there on Spook’s Branch. Said he could see her plain as day sitting by the window in her rocker, piddling with some sewing and singing real soft, keeping rhythm when her feet hit the floor. I remember he said it was a childhood memory cause it was so clear in his head and also because his Mama always looked so young. He said she knew every word to every verse, and sometimes she’d get so taken away with it that her hands would just fall into her lap and she’d rest her head on the back of the chair and sing serious. And he said there was a certain way the light coming in those two windows hit her face that made her look positively like an angel. Since I knew this, we sang “Precious Memories” at Daddy’s graveyard service and I recall thinking I hope his Mama who was buried right down the hill was knowing he was coming.

There was another old song that used to cloud Daddy up, a real tearjerker old love song that I never can remember the name of but I do remember a line that said something like they can take you from my arms but never from my heart. It was on an old scratchy record he had but hardly ever played, at least when I was around. But it was more likely to get hold of him when it came on the radio and caught him cold. I have this scene in my head of him standing in the middle of the kitchen floor, stock still in mid-step, after it came on the radio that sat on the counter next to the bread bin. It was like it froze him with this kind of blank look on his face. I must’ve just been little, but I remember it because it seemed like he was gone away, like his body was just a shell like when you find a locust hull on a tree limb where it got shucked. I watched him until the song ended, and Mama did too.

After it went off, he stood another second or two and then kinda snapped back. He looked around real quick to see if anybody was watching. He saw me and grinned sorta silly, but quit grinning when he looked at Mama. She was drying a saucer, half turned away, but he could still see most of her face. She didn’t look at him, she just said real quietly, “Thinking about her?”

It seemed like it took him by surprise but he managed to say straight back, “Naw, don’t be silly, I just always have liked that old song.”

Mama turned her back then and put her hands into the dishwater, which told me that Daddy’s answer hadn’t been very convincing. Nothing else was said and Daddy eased out the backdoor, saying something about needing something from the tool shed and being unusually careful not to slam the screen.

I had no idea who Mama meant when she asked Daddy if he was thinking about her. It could’ve been his Mama—she’d been dead about two years then, but that song just wasn’t that kind of song. No, this was a love song, one of those that would mean something between two people, make them draw close together whenever they heard it, even if they weren’t together.

But I can’t imagine my Daddy ever loving anyone except Mama. I always understood they just naturally matched up when they were about fourteen and stayed together through thick and thin—high school, the first world war, five children and one that died at birth for reasons no one ever knew, and then Mama got cancer. But maybe there was a time, a bad time probably, when Daddy did get close to someone else. I reckon stranger things have happened. Fact is, I know good and well they have.

That’s why the news about Leon smacked me down hard, cause there was a time a long while ago when my husband Slater was away in the service that something just happened between Leon and me. I can’t put my finger on any good reason, not even after all this time. It just happened and later I always felt bad about it. Maybe it was just being alone that spring which was so warm with nights you could pull around you like a soft baby blanket. Maybe it was some spell of spring that grabbed us and made us act without reasoning, him sneaking off from his wife and slipping in my backdoor, us pulling the shades and clinging under the covers for just a little bit, hardly ever talking even. Looking back, I believe we were both ashamed, feeling wicked and sinful and afraid of someone finding out. That kind of news spreads like wildfire in a little town, just like it did when Leon got killed.

I tried to close my eyes and imagine how it must’ve felt to all of a sudden find yourself in the grip of something that’s beyond your control. I used to be real good at that when I was younger, always conjuring up what if’s in my head, like what if my Daddy suddenly got killed in a car wreck or Slater got cancer or one of the kids drowned in the pond. I reckon that was my way of preparing for all those things beyond my control though I don’t really believe you could be prepared for something to happen to you like it did to Leon. One minute you’re doing something you’ve done plenty of times before and the next thing you know the cold metal axle of a tractor is mashing down on your throat, stealing away your breath so you can’t even scream. What would you think about? or would you pray? or would there be some kind of acceptance and then peace? For Leon’s sake, I always hoped so.

So I reckon I’ll walk out to the mailbox though chances are good there’ll be nothing but junk out there. But I’ll look at that bush now I’ve thought about Leon. And probably something else’ll come to mind, slip up from one of those dark corners of an old lady’s memory. Which is the problem when memories get to be about all you’ve got, cause you have to be on your guard all the time so one doesn’t come creeping round like a troublesome old ghost and catch you unaware.

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Based in Asheville, North Carolina, Gary Carter is a writer and editor whose most recently published work is Eliot’s Tale, a reverse coming-of-age road trip novel that contemplates things done and left undone. His short fiction also has appeared recently in Dead Mule, Burnt Bridge, Muscadine Lines and Read Short Fiction.

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The Dew reviewed Eliot's Tale on February 28, 2011.