Wade’s vision is pretty much completely gone; and again when I’m alone beside him, he’ll say occasional things that show he’s not entirely sure who I am or where he is at the moment and why. Just this afternoon I sat there by him through a ten-minute nap; and when he woke up and turned toward me, he said “Take a pen and write down this instruction.” I thought he might have some important request, so I got stuff to write with and told him to tell me. He put all ten fingers up to his temples, rubbed at them hard, then finally said “Wade Mayfield plans a fair distribution of all he owns to any child under fifteen years old who grew up an orphan like him and can prove same in writing.” When he finished he asked me to sign it for him. I continued obeying but he suddenly scowled at me quite wildly and said “You’ve forged my name all your life.” I begged his pardon but before he could give it, he was out again, another feverish nap.
Without going deeper than you could stand into this domestic tragedy—I’d just be repeating—I have to report that Hutch goes right on doing it all and refusing help, except for a student that sits with Wade for brief spells some days. Otherwise Hutch is cook, bottlewasher, trained nurse and constant companion. I’ll give him this much—so far he’s got the endurance of a mountain. He’s never looked stronger; he’s literally thriving. In meanness the other day, I told him if he’d been an undertaker and frequented the dead a lot earlier in life, he wouldn’t have a gray hair to show, even now. He laughed and said “Maybe.”
Every offer I make—beyond the two chores—is coolly rejected; and I can’t ask Wade, bad off as he is, to enter the fray on my behalf. I understand Hutch loves Wade in his own way as much as I do, so I’m straining every nerve to be fair. But still I know Hutch is paying me back by the bitter minute for saying I wanted a separate life, when I moved out. When I left, though my son was still strong—so far as I knew. Now I’m forced into what amounts to practical abandonment of the main thing I’ve cared for in my life. I honestly think if I turned up on the doorstep with my bag, saying I meant to say to the end, Hutch would call the sheriff to escort me out.
I know that sounds like trailer-park news, real white-trash behavior. But that’s where I stand and, even with a good deal of legal advice, I don’t see any way to reach my son for more than quick drop-in visits, with Hutch standing by and checking his watch. You and Straw mean the world to him—Straw means more than ever to him these days—so again if either of you can think of a word that will gain me greater natural access to my sick child, I’ll be your debtor till Judgment Day—which feels a lot closer than it has till now.
Meanwhile, love from
Ann
7
THOUGH it was only a two-hour trip on such a clear day, they were almost surely the bleakest hours Hutch had known on the road. He’d tried for days to resist Wade’s wish to see the old Kendal place again, his great-grandmother’s ancestral home, and Grainger there still. Hutch had told Wade lies about Grainger’s poor health, he’d told Wade how busy Straw and Emily would be in the growing season, Hutch had finally even said to Wade “Don’t make me do this.”
But at that, Wade had shut his eyes in silence and made the wish an unmistakable demand. Though Wade could no longer see Hutch’s face, he said “I want you to scatter my ashes up there by the creek where I used to go with Grainger. I want to pick the spot.”
So Hutch called Strawson with the ultimatum; and Straw suggested Sunday, May 30th. Emily would make up a daybed in the dining room where Wade could rest in the course of the day without climbing steps. Straw wouldn’t tell Grainger till the day itself; the old man would only dwell on it too hard and be confused when, and if, they got there—he’d already spoken more than once of Wade Mayfield as a friend of his childhood, ninety-five years back.
On the morning itself Hutch lost whatever nerve he’d had and lay on his bed just after dawn, thinking This is the first thing I can’t handle—can’t and won’t. But then he heard Wade awake down the hall, coughing and feeling his way round the room to dress himself. Hutch sat up, put his glasses on, found Maitland’s number and called him—ten or twelve rings and still no answer. Hutch recalled telling Mait last week that he wouldn’t need him over the weekend. Go calm Wade down; tell him you’re feeling sick—whatever it takes.
But by the time Hutch had put on his robe and walked to Wade’s door, the boy had finished dressing and sat on the edge of his bed, waiting silently.
Hutch stood there, looking.
The boy did seem a little stronger this morning; and though his face was mostly blank, it wore a new kind of unanswerable demand. He said “You’re trying to fail me, aren’t you?”
Hutch said “Pardon?”
“You’ve thought of a way to cancel my trip.”
“I have been feeling pretty awful all night—some stomach bug.”
Wade said “I’m the host to every bug species on Planet Earth and you’re feeling poorly.” He grinned; by now the sight was appalling, all teeth and white gums. “Go lie down then. I’ll call Ann Gatlin.” It was the only time Wade had used his mother as a threat between them.
Hutch said “Now you’ve turned mean.”
“Not mean at all, Hutch—just realistic. I’m making this trip, by car or taxi, alone or with one of you. I know Ann’s ready.”
“You call her in the night?” Wade’s late phone calls usually waked Hutch; more than once he’d had to get up and go in at three in the morning and hang up the phone after Wade had dozed off in the midst of a call.
Wade said “No sir, but she asked to come with me.”
“When?”
“Every second since I told her we were going.”
All right, use this. You’d rather drink lye, but call and ask her. Hutch gave Wade a last chance. “You’re serious now? You want Ann to join us?”
Wade said “I seem to remember a girl named Ann Gatlin brought me to life. Am I wrong on that?”
“Ann Gatlin Mayfield—you were no way a bastard.”
Wade said “She’s Gatlin to me these days. She did all the work, to the best of my memory—I know my mind’s failing.”
That was as near to a direct strike as any Hutch had taken since Wyatt’s first days on the edge of the family, sighting and firing on social occasions with the lethal arms and precision of a renegade African guerrilla. Hutch thought Take it gracefully; his mind is weak. Just call Ann and tell her you need her help. But he said to Wade “You’re making me do this.”
“I know I am.” Wade tried to laugh, then broke up coughing. At last he could finish. “You made me be. You started all this.”
Hutch said “You just now said Ann did it all.”
In the black bass voice of Hattie McDaniel in Gone with the Wind, Wade said “Mistuh Rhett, Lord, you is bad. I nevuh told you no such of a thing.” It was a voice Wyatt had used more than once on his visit here, kidding on the level with his fine hot eyes.
It felt unnecessarily cruel but Hutch turned and went, with no further persuasion, back to the phone in his own room.
Ann answered on the second ring; he could tell he’d waked her, though she denied it—her role in the trial of the Hurdle Mills Strangler was pressing her still.
Hutch said “You know about this planned trip to Strawson’s?”
“Wade told me, yes.”
“Can you help me with it?”
Ann said “Are you sure?”
For the first time in weeks, Hutch’s throat shut down; and what he said was audibly painful. “This is something I just can’t tackle alone.”
When Ann finally spoke, there was no sound of gloating. “Are you and Wade ready?”
“I’m not, God knows. Wade’s dressed himself in a strange mixed getup; I’ve still got to shower. They’re not expecting us till late morning anyhow.”
Ann said “Shall I be there by nine-thirty then?”
“I’d be grateful, yes.”
Ann hadn’t spent long months with lawyers for nothing. She’d always listened closely to words; n
ow she heard them like a radio telescope. “Grateful but not glad. I feel the same way. Anything I should bring?”
Her voice was milder than Hutch had heard lately. He lowered his own, “Bring an extra handkerchief. This’ll be hard.”
When Hutch hung up, Wade was standing in his doorway, smiling still in a shrunk knit shirt that said I’m The One Happy Homo and khaki trousers from his Boy Scout days, five inches too short. He grinned toward his father. “Nothing on Earth that can happen today will be any harder than being me.” It was only a fact, no trace of self-pity.
It was, and would be, the only time Hutch ever heard Wade confess to the horror that was clawing him down. Hutch carefully led the boy back to his room to help him change the clothes he’d chosen blind at dawn.
8
STRAW and Emily were as ready as they could be for the visit. In the old front parlor, the daybed was made up and ready for Wade when he needed rest. Beside the cot they’d set a china slop jar and a pitcher of water with glasses on the table by a small ice bucket. Emily had gathered a cold spread of food for whenever they were hungry; and when Hutch phoned to say they were starting the trip and to look for them somewhere around midday, Straw had walked down to Grainger’s to break the news as clearly as he could. He’d already made his early morning check to see if the old man had lasted the night and to cook his breakfast, so he had some confidence that Grainger was up and watching TV—Grainger liked Sunday morning political shows such as “Face the Nation.”
Without knocking, Straw opened the screen and stepped into the heat which Grainger had needed year-round for decades.
The old man was immaculately dressed in his stand-up chair at an awkward height, nearly half stood up and plainly awake. The TV was off and the air around him was all but crackling with the force of his ancient patience and readiness.
Straw said “Where you headed?”
Grainger said “You tell me. Been thinking all night I’m going somewhere. Sitting here ready.”
Straw leaned to the switch and lowered Grainger’s chair. With his hand he stroked the polished top of the enormous skull. Any touch of Grainger was likely to make Straw feel the scary power of his own long loneliness—this life that had burned on, unpaired for so long, gave off its strength like a tangible radiance. Then Straw took the straight chair opposite. “No good news on the TV this morning?”
“Nothing but white folks trying to preach. Blond-headed strumpets and pitiful-looking sissified men in light blue suits with red hair dye.”
“I thought you sent those preachers contributions.”
“Do,” Grainger said. “Some of them, I do; but that don’t mean I got to watch them talking. I just pay them to pray for me every few months.”
Straw said “I thought you could do your own praying.” Grainger and churches had seldom seen eye to eye.
The head shook slowly. “I gave up praying after Gracie died. Can’t see prayer ever helped me anyhow.”
Straw said “Somebody’s been looking out for you.”
“You.”
True as it was, that came to Straw as a considerable surprise. He’d lived in close touch with Grainger Walters for near forty years. He’d hardly felt scorned or disvalued by the old man; but no, Straw had never heard him come so near to thanks before. He said “I’ve enjoyed every day we’ve had.”
Grainger said “You been short on stuff to enjoy.”
Straw waited for some expansion of that—he’d had his disappointments and persistent aches but no long bitterness, despite his drinking. Still Grainger had shot his bolt for now. Straw had to move on. “You’re feeling all right this morning then?”
“You can see. How I look?”
Straw said “Three or four years younger than me—you look first-rate. But we’ve got a problem here. You know how sick Wade Mayfield’s been; you know Hutch and I brought him home last month. He’s feeling a little stronger, and Hutch is driving him.”
Grainger said “Wade called me up last night on that thing.” He still called the telephone that thing and often wouldn’t answer it, claiming he could tell from the ring whether a call was long distance or local—he honored long distance.
Straw said “Hutch called you up last night?”
“Wade called—I told you.”
“What time; what did he say?”
“In the dark sometime. Said he’s coming today. That’s why I’m waiting, fool.”
Straw felt the need to test for Grainger’s clarity; he feared the old man might upset Wade through misunderstanding. “How old was Wade last time you saw him?”
“Saw him this past spring; he come here with Ann.”
“Did he look full grown?”
Grainger bowed his head deeply. “Son, I know who Wade Mayfield is. And he told me plenty about what’s killing him. When he comes, lead him down here and leave him with me. Don’t want you or Hutch or nobody else—black or white—hanging round, tuned in to what we say.”
Straw said “Yes sir, Mr. Walters. But understand—last time I saw Wade, he was very confused. His mind’s badly affected by the illness, and he’s totally blind most all the time. He may not really know what he’s telling you.”
Grainger shook his head again. “Wade’s called me plenty of times in the past year, crazy as a cat. I’ve known crazy men all my life, some women too—they’ve been good to me; I can talk every one of them down to being peaceful. Wade gets peaceful with me every time, once I talk him down some. Known heap worse fools than Wade in my time.”
Even a short conversation with Grainger almost always set Straw, who still read mountains of history and lives of the great, to thinking of the scale of human time—how short it is and how long it feels. Now Straw thought of a question, entirely off the subject of Wade, that his mind had raised in a dream last night. If he didn’t ask questions when he thought of them now, he’d likely forget; so he said “Mr. Walters, who was the oldest person you met when you were a boy?”
Grainger knew at once and, leaning back, told it to the ceiling. “I met an old woman in Washington, D.C. when I was changing trains on my way down to Virginia from my father’s in Maine—coming to stay with my great-great-grandmother, old Miss Veenie that you never knew: something else you missed. I was sitting in the station, scared to death—eight years old and heading to where the slavery times were scarcely over, in spite of what every calendar said—when this old colored woman, size of a sparrow, come up to me and asked me would I take her somewhere to ‘do her business.’
“Old—she looked a lot older to me than any burnt-out chimney by the road. She had to be somewhere near the age I am today. That would have been around 1900. She was near blind like Wade’s going to be; so I took her hand and led her to the only place I knew about, the big men’s room—a gray marble place about the size of this county. She looked like a man, bald as me now; but she wore a long dress. Still nobody stopped us and she got her skirts up and set herself down like she’d been using indoor toilets all her years. Then she held my hand while she did her business—her skin was drier than mine is now, worse than gator hide.
“It took her a long time; but when she finished and stood back up, she said ‘You a mighty respectful little man.’ I thanked her for that, and she said ‘You bound to know who I am.’ To hush her up I said I knew her; but she said ‘You lying’ and hit me a lick on the head, not hard. By then I’d led her back to the bench for colored people, hard as a rail; and when she sat down, she said ‘Tell your children you know old Lacey.’ I said ‘Who’s Lacey?’ and she said ‘One of Miss Martha Custis’s niggers—Miss Martha Washington at old Mount Vernon.’ Said she was a slave on the Washington place out by the Potomac when she was a girl, born a little bit after ‘old General died.’ That made her younger than I am today—like I said maybe just by a year or so.
“Course she may have been lying, bragging on herself; but if you sit down with your history book and do some arithmetic, you’ll see she could have been telling me the truth. I th
ought she was then, I still think she was; she looked like the truth. I see her right now. Ugliest old woman I ever watched; but she knew her story, old as she was—less she was lying.”
“And you think she was?”
Grainger said “I told you No. She was too old to make up something that hurt that bad to hear and still be smiling.”
Straw had heard most of Grainger’s stories many times through the years but never this one. It made him want to stand and wail to the open sky—the fact that one man, a man you’d known and watched all your life, could ram you back that far in time through direct knowledge, hand-to-hand. And here this morning they were all torn up and grieving for one particular boy who’d killed himself by strowing his seed where the ground was poison. It made Straw long, as he longed so often, to walk out of this room and keep walking straight through woods and creeks till he found the one safe place on Earth where he could pause—it had to be there, though he’d yet to find it—and then to take a dry seat on the ground, shut his eyes and never leave, never retrace his steps, never see his home and kin again.
Grainger said “Don’t let this get you down.”
Straw came to himself and touched the old man’s knee. “I’m trying hard.”
“Try harder then—this many people leaning on you, you can’t cave in.”
Straw said “Don’t worry. I’ll tend to you.”
“Not me I’m thinking about, not now. You could go on and stretch me out today and I’d be glad. Hutch and his boy though—they driving up here right this minute for me to save; and I can’t walk ten steps to meet them, much less ease their misery.”
“They know that, Mr. Walters.”
“Why else they coming then?” Grainger’s eyes were crouched and gleaming with the helpless need to do a duty he’d felt all his life to a few white men that were his blood kin, though they’d let him live like a whole different creature in a parallel world that ran—when it moved at all—beneath their feet, never higher than their knees: a world that was generally either ice-cold or blistering hot, furnished with big-eyed hungry children and men and women old as Grainger, harder than ironwood and wild in their minds. All the same, a great part of Grainger’s pain rose from the fact that all he wanted to do and give now was far past giving. He understood he was nothing on Earth but eyes today—useless eyes and a wakeful mind that, he well knew, came and went like daylight.
The Promise of Rest Page 15
