Twilight

by William Gay

  I know all about lost, the benevolent madman was saying. I wrote the book on lost. I was lost myself till Jesus reached down tonight and plucked me out of the slop I was crawlin in and stood me on my own two feet. You can ask Pearl if you doubt what I say.

  The bonneted woman was nodding indiscriminate agreement all the while, but the children’s faces watching were just the carefully closed and slightly skeptical faces of children and they told him nothing at all. The darkhaired girl was very pretty, and she was staring at him with a nightransfixed intensity.

  Claude was saved tonight, Pearl said. He was a drunkard for twentyodd year, but tonight he give it all up.

  I’m just trying to get to Ackerman’s Field, Tyler said. I come from Centre and I’ve been turned around in the woods.

  Lord, you’re a long way from home, the man said. But you’re closer to Ackerman’s Field than you are Centre. You must be plumb wore out and about starved to death.

  I just need to get to town. I have to see somebody bad. You don’t have a telephone, do you?

  Lord, no. They work on wires, don’t they, and they ain’t never run no wires in here.

  I can maybe catch a ride into town from here then.

  But the man would not have it so. His hand had clamped Tyler’s biceps. His eyes sought Tyler’s eyes with a divine fixity as if righting this lost and doubtful sheep would consolidate his pact with whatever had struck him here this night. You goin with us. You goin to get somethin to eat and a bed to sleep in and you goin into town with us in the mornin. We go of a Saturday. Can’t let you wander around here all night, and it wouldn’t be Christian to leave you to the varmints.

  Tyler made to pull away, but this seemed much the lesser of several evils, and at the mention of food his stomach had twisted with an almost painful writhing. He allowed himself to be tugged along toward whatever they were moving to. All the other revelers had gone as finally as if the night had taken them. The trees were steeped in a murky blue negation of light, and above them and the dark blue suggestion of horizon a moon had risen halfobscured by lavender clouds like a pale cataracted eye watching them.

  The man talked as they progressed, he had not ceased. This here is Pearl, he said, gesturing toward the woman. These is Drew and Aaron and this here grown girl or thinks she is is Claudelle.

  There was an old pickup truck turned into a sideroad. The truck had a flat bed with sideboards cobbled up out of slabs. It had been black but was a black now that remembered nothing of paint and seemed to draw light and suck it out of sight somewhere beneath its surface.

  Nobody said anything, but Tyler guessed he was to ride in the back and climbed onto the tailgate. The two boys followed, and the girl would have as well, but the woman grasped her arm and pulled her toward the cab.

  The road they followed was bowered so low with branches that they were forever ducking and ended sitting against the cab. As they progressed light to dark, the moonlight made lace filigrees of moving shadow in the truckbed. He rested his head against the cold metal of the cab.

  The road spooled palely out behind them and shadow took it and it seemed never to have existed, a road formed by the headlights and diminishing in the red glow of the taillights, beyond that just windy space and nothingness save Sutter trying to devise a way to cross it.

  What was you huntin? the biggest boy shouted over the roar of the truck. The younger boy was already asleep against Drew’s shoulder, eyes closed and lashes shadowed on his pale face.

  What?

  What was you huntin? Squirrels, rabbits, what?

  Bears, Tyler said.

  The boy glanced at the rifle Tyler clutched. He leaned to spit through the sideboards at the fleeing road and gave Tyler a cold cat’s look. You come armed mighty light for em, he said. Tyler just grinned and didn’t say anything. When the truck ceased they were not before some shotgun shack as he had expected they would be but a substantial farmhouse set in the lee of dark hills. Beyond it other buildings that lay in shadow, the bulk of a barn. He could smell woodsmoke from the fire they’d left. The cab doors sprang open and they got out.

  Is Aaron done asleep? the woman called.

  I reckon. He’s laid against me ever since we left.

  Hand him down here then, Drew.

  Claude was striding toward the porch. At its edge he halted. Boy, where’s that wood you was supposed to stack on the porch. There ain’t nary a stick up here.

  Drew had scrambled down from the truckbed. I clearlight forgot it, getting ready for meetin and all. You reckon a good kick in the hind end would help you remember? Claude asked, but there was no real force behind his words. He seemed still touched by whatever of brotherhood he’d soaked up at the campmeeting and willing to pass this magnanimity along to those with human failings.

  I believe I can remember it without you goin to that trouble, Drew said easily. I’d do it right now, I reckon.

  I reckon you will. Take this lost sheep along with you to help. He turned to Tyler. Just follow Drew here. It’s down by the barn.

  When they had progressed out of what Drew judged to be hearing distance, he said, He’s the damnedest feller for stackin wood on the porch I ever seen. Specially as long as I’m doin it.

  Tyler didn’t say anything. There were no trees to block the moon here and the barnlot lay told in somber shades of black and silver. The wood was corded under a crude shed of old barn tin nailed on poles and Tyler started ricking it up on his arms.

  It’s a wheelbar here somewhere. Saves totin it.

  The wheelbarrow was a rickety homemade affair of short boards nailed to cedar poles and its wheel had once served a cultivator. The wheel was unsure of its moorings and moved when you pushed the wheelbarrow with a fey drunken whimsy of its own.

  Was you sure enough lost?

  I sure enough was. Still am.

  You wadn’t huntin bear, though. My guess is you was coon huntin and got turned around and lost your dogs. Did they not ever tree?

  If they did I didn’t hear them. Boy, you was lucky to get out alive, wanderin around in there at night. I ever get lost in there, I aim to travel in the daytime and lay up at night. There’s all kinds of wells and holes back in there. Mineshafts. I had a uncle, Mama’s brother, Clifford Suggs, he went huntin in there Christmas Day in 1945 and he ain’t come out till yet. They hunted for him no tellin how long and never even found a track. What do you reckon happened to him?

  I don’t know.

  I bet he’s down one of them shafts. Nothin but bones by now, I bet. Clifford was all right. He was one of my favorite uncles, but still and all, I’m glad it’s him and not me. Think about dyin like that. Fallin off down one of them things and no way out. Layin there hurt and nothin to eat and them walls too steep to climb. Watchin the daylight and birds flyin over and stuff. It just seems to me somebody ought to be watchin things like that.

  Do what?

  You know, whoever’s in charge of all this. Whoever’s supposed to be watchin things, seeing after em. Pa always gets the religion at these tent meetins, but he misplaces it after a few days. Pa always says His eye is on the sparrow, but I reckon He must of looked away a minute when Clifford stepped off in that hole. Don’t you ever think about things like that?

  Not if I can help it, Tyler said. I’m just like everybody else, trying to get by.

  You goin to town with us tomorrow?

  I sure am. Don’t you think this thing’s about loaded?

  Heavier we load it the less trips we got to make. Boy, we’ll have us a time in town. We’ll go to the picture show. You gotany money?

  A little. Not much time, though. I need to see a man in Ackerman’s Field, and then I’ve got to figure how to get a ride back to Centre.

  It don’t take long to see a picture show. Last time I went it was Lash LaRue, you ever seen him? We’ll find us a couple of them town girls and set up in the balcony and play with their titties, that’s what I’m layin off to do.

  Drew glanced toward the house. Lamp
s had been lit now, and warm yellow squares of light defrayed the dark. He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper even though the house and any ear that might be listening lay fifty or sixty yards away.

  You ever had any pussy?

  Any what? Seems like I’ve heard of it somewhere, but I can’t think what it is.

  That’s what a girl—oh, shit. Nobody’s that lost in the woods. You funnin me again, ain’t ye?

  Maybe a little.

  Anyway, they say these town girls’ll flat put it on ye. We give Pa and them the slip tomorrow, we just might find out. But you better watch Claudelle; she’s boy-crazy.

  Say she is?

  Shit yes. You not seen the way she’s been watchin you? Like a cat slippin up on a bird. Ma says it’s just her age, but it just looks to me like she’s come into some kind of a heat. Like cows and such does. She’ll light on you like a duck on a junebug. You better watch Pa, though.

  Is that right?

  It damn sure is. He’s done run off three or four with a gun. What do you think about that? I think if we don’t get this wood to the house he’s going to have one after us.

  All right then, let’s go. I just get to talkin and don’t never know when to quit. Out here I ain’t got nobody to talk to.

  Claude waved them to table with an expansive arm. The table had been laid, and Tyler’s sweeping eye took in white beans cooked with chunks of ham and a steaming bowl of snowy mashed potatoes and a platter of fried pork chops. Biscuits from the warming closet and what he judged was muscadine jelly and glasses of buttermilk all way round.

  It ain’t much, but it beats hickory nuts and a claw hammer, Claude said. Just help yourself, boy.

  Tyler didn’t need asking. Drew was already ladling full his plate, and Tyler was eyeing the level of beans in the pot and spearing pork chops with his fork. The sloe-eyed girl was eyeing him from across the table but he had an eye only for the food and was dishing out mashed potatoes and awaiting the pot of beans.

  I like a boy not afraid to help hisself, Pearl said.

  Then you bound to pure dee love this feller, Claude said. He makes hisself right at home.

  I was about starved out, Tyler said.

  Who are you anyway, Lost Sheep? You from over around Centre?

  I’m a Tyler. We always lived down on Lick Creek.

  Lick Creek? You ain’t kin to old Moose Tyler, are you?

  That’s what folks always called my daddy.

  Claude had laid aside his eating utensils and was staring at Tyler in parodic disbelief. Well, I’ll be doubledipped in shit, he said. Why, boy, I’ve held you on my knee a lot of times. Old Moose Tyler’s boy. You watch your mouth at table, Pearl said. Be baptized at a meetin and come straight home and talk that way at the supper table.

  ‘Shit’ ain’t takin the name of the Lord our God in vain, Claude said. Or wadn’t the last time I looked.

  It’s vulgar talk, Bible or no Bible, and if it don’t say in there not to say it, it ort to.

  If this ain’t the beatinest thing, Claude said in wonder. Of all the people to come up out of the woods and wind up at my table. Boy, I knowed your daddy thirty year or more. He used to make as fine a whiskey as ever run down my throat, and I shore was sorry to hear when he passed on. I’ve passed out in your house and slept in your front room more times than once.

  And a lot more front rooms, too, Pearl said. Not that it’s anything to brag about. She was watching Tyler intently and he felt his social standing had plummeted precipitously and he was eating incrementally faster as if the red-and-white-checkered tablecloth might suddenly plate and all be jerked from beneath his knife and fork.

  Didn’t you have a sister a little older than you? Pretty little brindleheaded thing with big eyes?

  Yes.

  Where’s she at? Claude grinned. She ain’t lost, too, is she?

  Tyler’s jaws had ceased working. He lowered his fork and sat silent for a moment staring at his plate.

  She died too, he finally said.

  Drew was fiddling with the radio. Twirling the dial from one end of the scale to the other. Garbled bits of laughter, music, soap jingles. Applause. Snippets of lives that were so foreign to them they might have come from another country, another planet.

  Leave it in one place, Claude said. Put it on WCKY. They might have the Chuck Wagon Gang.

  I ain’t studyin no Chuck Wagon Gang. I’m tryin to find the Long Ranger.

  Claude looked up from the Bible he was poring over. Boy, the Lone Ranger ain’t goin to get you into Heaven.

  He’d come about as close as the Chuck Wagon Gang, Drew said. But I reckon he must be out of town tonight. I can’t even get the station.

  Let me see that thing. Claude dialing. The tailend of a gospel song. A voice came on telling about a miraculous photograph that had cured folks of cancer, arthritis, goiters. Whatever they had. Tumors the size of goose eggs miracled into oblivion, malignancies turned benign. A photograph was taken of a rose garden and when developed it showed the softly glowing figure of Christ the King reaching out toward whoever held the photograph. All free for the asking save postage and handling and a small donation.

  Drew rose and went out and pulled the door to on the night. Claude built himself a Bull Durham cigarette and sat with the Bible open on his lap, listening to the voices coming out of the radio, his eyes closed. The woman was not about, and Tyler guessed she’d gone to bed. Somewhere in the house a clock was ticking loudly, he couldn’t tell where.

  He looked toward the kitchen and Claudelle was standing in the door watching him. He looked away out the window at the dark and when he looked back the door was empty. After a while he rose and went into the kitchen. A cabinet the lengthof the kitchen held a drysink, and the girl was standing with her back to him washing dishes. Her black hair fell to her waist. At his step the hand holding the dishcloth stopped its motion, and she seemed to be waiting for something. She faced a window, and the lamp mirrored the glass so that Tyler could see himself reaching across her shoulder for the dipper in the water bucket. In the lamplit glass his face looked sharp and predatory. When his arm touched her shoulder, she turned, and when she did they were very close. In the yellow lamplight her face was translucent and poreless as a face carved from marble.

  Why don’t you just slip up on a body? she asked.

  You heard me coming.

  I did not.

  We won’t argue about it. You were waiting for me, though.

  Waitin for you to do what?

  For the first time her eyes met his. They were darkly fringed with lashes and in the lamplight they looked violet in their depths.

  I don’t know. This maybe.

  He kissed her and she didn’t pull away, but she stiffened, and under his mouth her lips were little girl’s lips, prim and clenched. He cupped a breast, and she made some murmurous sound, and her mouth opened and a hand still wet with soapy water came up to clasp the back of his neck. Her eyes opened and he knew she was watching the doorway across his shoulder, and he could tell by the look on her face the doorway was empty. He dropped a hand to her hip and her pelvis moved involuntarily against him. He slipped the hand between their bodies, and she made some minute adjustment to accommodate it. He cupped her mounded fleshand she went slack and boneless against him. Her legs parted and her tongue was in his mouth for a moment, and she hugged him hard and suddenly pushed him away.

  We’d better quit. Daddy’ll be here in a minute.

  He’s listening to the radio.

  That’s not all he’s listening to, she said.

  There’s nothing in here for him to hear.

  That’s exactly what I meant.

  He released her reluctantly and stepped away from her. He drug a ladderback chair from the table and turned it backward and sat watching her with his arms crossed over the top slat. All right, let’s talk, then.

  Okay. You were right, I did want you to come in here. I wanted you to do that, too. I didn’t want to quit.


  What part? The kiss, or what?

  She reddened. I don’t know. All of it. The kiss. I never kissed a boy before.

  He grinned. Me neither.

  A caramelcolored dog had roused itself from the corner where it slept. It looked about for the girl, then trotted over and lay back down with its chin on her foot and lay watching Tyler warily.

  Why on earth is that dog wearing earrings?

  Ain’t that somethin? Claudelle said. I saw this movie star in a book. She was holdin this dog that looked just like Carmie and it was wearin a pair of earrings. I bought these at the dimestore, and Drew pierced her ears for me with a needle.

  Well, that’s the first one I’ve ever seen.

  It’s only the second one I’ve heard tell of.

  Claudelle.

  She jumped. What, Daddy?

  Wind up them dishes and get in the bed.

  All right, Daddy.

  Right now.

  Where am I supposed to sleep? Tyler whispered.

  In the front room, I guess. On the couch. It’s all there is.

  All right. When everybody’s asleep, come in there with me.

  Do what?

  Come in there with me when they’re asleep.

  Why would I do that?

  Because you want to, Tyler said. Because I want you to. We can sit in there and talk.

  She grinned. What else’ll we do?

  Nothing you don’t want to.

  I will if I can, she said. If I can stay awake till they’re all asleep.

  You can if you want to.

  You know I want to.

  When all the lamps were blown out the darkness was absolute. He lay in the strange room with the mothball-smelling quilt pulled about his chin and listened to the sounds the house made. Being lost at sea would be like this, Tyler thought. In the stormy dark. There were no walls, no ceiling, no floor. No north or south, nothing a compass could affix to. Nothing save the dark and the wind funneling cold down the hollow and flattening itself against whatever contained him against the night. He thought of Sutter, and then he forced Sutter out of his mind and thought of Claudelle. Her eyes so near his own. Dark, wise, woman’s eyes in a child’s face. The taste of her mouth, the clean soapscent of her hair. He was utterly weary, and the womblike comfort of the quilt was like adream. I will wake up in a stumphole with the rain in my face, he thought. Maybe I’ll stay another night, he was thinking drowsily. Or two. The food’s not half bad. I could just move in and they could adopt me. Marry Claudelle. Have a little log cabin in the woods with a trellis for climbing roses. Claude could give us a cow and a hog for a dowry, and we already have a dog that wears earrings.