At the End of the Road

by Grant Jerkins

  Grace replaced the pillow, being sure to place it exactly as her mother had positioned it, and crept to the dresser on the other side of the room. She stole a glance at her reflection in the mirror, admiring the cape. The bedroom-set, including the dresser, was made of pecan wood, and Mama said it was the most expensive thing she had ever owned. The pecan was dark stained and absorbed light like the pine floors. Grace scanned the top of the dresser, then once again her eyes were drawn up to her own reflection in the dresser mirror. She was a pretty girl. She had dark features, like Jason. She had deep brown eyes set perfectly into her face like almonds turned on their sides. Her hair was straight and long and cut into bangs. It was the same rich, glowing brown as her eyes. Her skin was tan, not pale like Wade and Kyle. She was a pretty girl and she knew she was a pretty girl because people told Mama how pretty she was every time they went out somewhere. But Grace didn’t care about being pretty. She just wanted to be a girl and have fun and for Kyle to be her friend.

  She found the little chipped china bowl on the dresser top that held Daddy’s change. She fingered through it, trying to decide what to take, when she saw the standing liberty silver dollar. It was big and it filled her small hand so that she could not wrap her fingers around it. It covered her palm entirely. Grace grasped the coin tight while she debated with herself. It was a prize. A true prize. But there was just the one. Daddy was very likely to notice it missing. There were a bunch of quarters and a few fifty-cent pieces. She knew that she could safely take a quarter—even two—and it would never be missed. This was different. It was special. But she wanted to impress Kyle.

  She kept the coin and crept out of the room.

  Back in her bedroom, Grace gathered all of the materials she would need for the treasure hunt game. The silver dollar was special, so she started with the end of the game first. Taking the spool of brown thread that she had snuck out of the drawer of Mama’s Singer sewing machine, she began wrapping the coin in thread, over and over, round and round, weaving the thread in places so that it could not unravel, until she was certain that it was secure. She cut the thread, leaving about a foot of excess length. She held it up and examined it. The coin swung back and forth like a pendulum or a watch on a chain.

  The next step was the red and white plastic bobber she had taken directly off Daddy’s fishing pole propped against the wall in the carport. Daddy would notice that for sure too, but he would blame Wade. Wade was always sneaking off to Sweetwater Reservoir to fish off the banks. Grace tied the bobber to the end of the thread, and she was delighted with the results. She knew her plan would work perfectly. Kyle sometimes said that the treasure hunts Grace orchestrated were baby-cry—too easy. Not this time though.

  She gathered little slips of paper and began writing. Sometimes she paused between one slip of paper and the next, thinking, imagining. Then she would smile and scribble down what she had thought up.

  Grace ran from the house and set about the work of setting it all up.

  KYLE WAS WATCHING TV, CHIN CRADLED

  in his palms, sitting cross-legged on the floor, about one foot from the pulsing screen. He noted Grace’s red, white, and blue cape (he hadn’t yet told her what really became of her doll, but would have to soon) as she marched up to him and held out a tightly folded scrap of paper.

  She smiled. He smiled.

  The game was afoot.

  The stench of char and soot was heavy in the air, but for now Kyle put that out of his mind. In the sunlight on the driveway, he unfolded the note and read it again. In Grace’s childish scrawl, it said: Go to the rabbit. Kyle headed off to the side yard where the rabbit was kept in a hutch their daddy had made from scrap plywood and chicken wire. Maw-Maw Edwards had given the bunny to Wade last Easter, but after a short period of enthrallment, Wade’s interest had moved on to other things, and he proclaimed that once the rabbit died he would harvest four lucky rabbit’s feet.

  The hutch was tucked into a shady spot where the woods began (or used to, before the fire). Kyle first looked all around the exterior of the cage, careful to inspect the bottom. He opened the hutch door and rooted through the dirty, seldom changed straw. Nothing. He picked up the aluminum pie pan that served as a food dish and looked under it. He also inspected the bottom of the tin pan lest anything be taped there. Still nothing.

  Grace squirmed with delight. Not so baby-cry after all, she thought. She had put a lot of effort into setting up the game and felt that this would be the best one yet.

  Kyle folded his arms, seeming to decide that thought should take priority over action. Then it came to him, and he reached back inside the cage and gingerly picked up the rabbit (which was known to bite on occasion), and poked through the straw, which was warm from the rabbit’s body. Still nothing. He was pulling his arm from the cage when a glimpse of white caught his eye. There was something peeking out from the mound of dog kibble that they fed the rabbit. Kyle plucked out the note and read it: Go to the front door.

  At the front door, the next instruction was in the first place he looked—under the welcome mat. This was par for the course: Some were ridiculously easy, while others were fiendishly hard—sometimes dangerous. In block letters, this note urged him to explore the medicine cabinet.

  In the bathroom, Kyle inspected all around the outside edges of the medicine cabinet, paying close attention to the bottom in case the next note was taped there. He opened the mirrored front, conscious of seeing his reflection slide away from him. The three enameled metal shelves were clotted with rust stains and jammed with bottles of aspirin, tinctures, half-used tubes of lotions, salves, creams, various laxatives, enema hose tips, Band-Aids, and all of the other things a family finds use for over the years.

  Kyle exhaustively looked under and inside each and every item. But he avoided the dark glass bottle of Mercurochrome. Mercurochrome was the curse of Kyle’s boyhood. Like most boys, seemingly every new day brought a scraped knee, or a stubbed toe, or a thorn puncture, or a cut from a pocketknife, and again like most boys, Kyle’s instinct was to seek out his mother whenever he was hurt. His mother’s first aid always began by blowing on the new wound—a steady cooling stream of breath that invariably brought relief. Unfortunately, her second, and likewise invariable response was to reach for the hateful bottle of Mercurochrome.

  It came in a small glass bottle, the size of a big man’s thumb. The bottle cap had a thin frosted glass wand attached to the bottom, to be used to paint the tincture on open wounds. The Mercurochrome itself was a shocking carmine color, with some orange thrown in, like blood mixed with rust. And it stained the skin this color for days afterward. And it burned like acid. It stung the flesh like a soldering iron. Wherever the little wand painted its bloodred antiseptic, it was like a row of hornet stings, burning, pulsing. So intense was the pain from Mercurochrome that Kyle’s aversion to it had finally overridden his inborn instinct to seek out his mother for comfort. Now he hid his hurts from her, and in fact had not had to undergo the red trauma in nearly a year.

  With everything else inspected, Kyle finally picked up the small dark bottle. He could not have used more care had he been handling a vial of nitroglycerine. He unscrewed the cap a thread at a time, and sure enough, wrapped around the applicator tip with a bit of Saran Wrap was a tiny slip of paper no bigger than that found in a fortune cookie.

  Kyle, who was perched on the bathroom sink, looked down at Grace and realized in that moment that in many ways Grace was far braver than he could ever hope to be. In the course of her life, which would ultimately hold much more pain than it would happiness, Grace would never forget the look in her brother’s eyes. It was admiration. Pure, distilled admiration. And maybe even love—that emotion siblings of any age seldom bestow upon one another. Kyle stared at her so long and so hard until finally, Grace had to look away from him.

  Before he even thought about touching it, Kyle rinsed the wand under the faucet, until the water ran off it clear for a good long time. He peeled off the note and sat i
t aside. He went to put the cap back on the glass bottle, but in his success he had grown careless, and he tipped the bottle over. The Mercurochrome splashed down on his bare thigh. Kyle saw the horrid neon splotch spread over his skin like a cancer. He locked his jaw and steeled himself for the massive jolt of pain that would wash over him. But the sensation of the Mercurochrome on his skin was cooling and even pleasant. There was no pain. Because there was no wound for the Mercurochrome to disinfect. Kyle had not anticipated this. And it was a revelation for him. His fear, while rooted in truth, had been so great as to blot out the obvious, the rational.

  He cleaned himself up and changed into long pants. He would have to wear long pants for three days until the carmine stain faded away. It looked like a birthmark.

  That note sent him to the peanut patch where he searched under the hot sun until he found the next slip of paper wrapped tightly around a plant stalk. Then it was to the barbed wire fence. Then to their daddy’s toolbox. To the magnolia tree where a note dangled high up—Grace having used thread and a metal nut for weight to toss it up there. Then a risky, but ultimately successful reconnaissance mission to the white wooden beehives nestled in the far corner of the backyard. (Grace had placed the note while the honeybees were drowsing in the morning stillness, but on her exit, she stood back a distance and struck the box with a hefty rock to wake them up.)

  The next instruction gave Kyle pause: Go to the parlise man mailbox.

  KYLE TREKKED TOWARD THE CORNFIELD

  with Grace following, her cape flowing behind her. She would be both the judge and impartial observer. He planned to emerge from the corn where it grew right up to the shoulder of Eden Road so that he would be facing the paralyzed man’s house. For now, standing safely concealed two rows back, Kyle could see the paralyzed man sitting on his front porch, just staring at nothing. Kyle jutted his arm behind him, motioning with his hand for Grace to approach with quiet care.

  The house had been silent and looked empty when Grace had placed the note in the mailbox that morning, otherwise she would not have dared such a maneuver. Even then, she had sat on the other side of the road, concealed in the corn for a good long time. To make sure. And although she had never been entirely sure, never entirely comfortable with this escalation of difficulty and dare in the treasure hunt game, she did it anyway, her instincts telling her that she was leading herself into sure danger. She did it for Kyle. To impress him, to prove to him that she wasn’t a baby, that she was deserving of his time and companionship. So she kept her eyes firmly on the mailbox just on the other side of the road. It was decrepit and the metal support post tilted drunkenly to the side like a tombstone heaved by the contractions of ground frost. The mailbox door hung open on rusted hinges like a broken jaw, old yellowed bills and circulars vomiting from it. Grace darted across the road, shoved the note far in the back, and was back hidden in the corn in less than three seconds.

  Kyle took another tack. He had to figure out a way to retrieve the note right under the eyes of the paralyzed man. There was no way he would acknowledge defeat, acknowledge that Grace had managed to place the next clue out of his reach. Even if it came down to a blatant dash-and-snatch, he would accomplish the task set before him.

  Grace smiled to herself in unspoken admiration as she watched Kyle set up and execute the retrieval.

  He circled back through the corn, emerged on the road well above the paralyzed man’s house, and began walking at the most leisurely of paces, as though he was maybe heading down the road to Sweetwater Reservoir to go swimming. This route took him directly in front of Patrick and Joel’s house—which was next door to the paralyzed man, separated by a plot of pole beans. He saw no sign of the Sewells and was glad for this. Patrick Sewell might not be actively seeking revenge on Kyle, but he likely wouldn’t let a golden opportunity to inflict misery pass him by either. It was just his nature.

  As he approached, Kyle was very much aware of the paralyzed man’s eyes watching him from the sloping, gently warped porch. As he got directly in front of the house, Kyle made a show of becoming aware that there was a person on the porch.

  “Howdy,” Kyle said.

  The paralyzed man nodded his head in curt acknowledgement, his eyes imperceptible behind slitted lids.

  Kyle then made a show of noticing the glut of sales papers, mailers, and grocery flyers advertising MoonPies and ground beef for sixty-nine cents a pound—all toned ochre by the heat, sun, and humidity.

  “Sir, would you want me to bring your mail up to you?”

  The paralyzed man took his time answering, as though mulling over the pros and cons of such an interaction. Finally, in an agreeable tone, he said, “That would be fine, girl. That would be just fine.”

  “Sir?”

  “Bring it, girl.”

  “I’m a boy.”

  “Boy. What I meant to say. Bring it.”

  Kyle took care in pulling out the mail, and when he spotted the folded note tucked to the rear, he grabbed it quick.

  Kyle walked up the snaking wheelchair ramp, carrying the armload of mail, Grace’s note palmed like a bribe. The wood ramp still smelled of the chemicals used to treat the lumber, and its newness stood out in dramatic contrast with the uneven planes of the weathered porch.

  The paralyzed man motioned to a small, pollen-stained glass-top table and Kyle dumped the mail there. “Mighty nice of you. ‘Boy.’”

  “It wasn’t no problem.”

  “Y’all them that lives right over yonder?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Two brothers and a little sister?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Yep. I’ve seen you all. Don’t bother nobody.”

  “Nosir.”

  “Christian?”

  “Yessir.”

  “’Course you are. Seen you in church.” The man paused, reflected, then added, “Not like them that lives right here next door. Sewells. They pose as Christians.” The paralyzed man leaned to the side and spat on his porch. “County chairman my eye.”

  “I don’t guess I know them too well,” Kyle said.

  “Ain’t nothing worth knowing about that lot.”

  “I reckon not.”

  The paralyzed man said, “You all are good trees. Keep to yourselves.”

  “Sir?”

  “I stutter?”

  “No, sir. You said my family is trees.”

  “People, boy. Good people. Had the stroke, you know.”

  Kyle nodded and took a polite half step back away from the paralyzed man, a gesture to communicate that he was ready to leave.

  “Let me give you a quarter for fetching my mail.”

  Kyle knew that he could get a whole pack of watermelon Now and Laters at the reservoir bait shop for less than a quarter. A pack of Now and Laters could be rationed to last a whole day if you were disciplined about it. But Kyle’s skin had begun to crawl. He wanted off the porch more than he wanted the Now and Laters. He took another half step backward.

  “Nosir, I just couldn’t take that. I appreciate it, though.”

  “Just wait a minute and let me reach here in my pocket.”

  As Kyle shuffled a bit farther away from the man, he saw that one side of the paralyzed man’s body worked just fine, while the other side was dead.

  “No. Nosir, I’ve got to—”

  The paralyzed man’s good left arm shot out like a striking cobra, and his hand clamped down on Kyle’s wrist. It was tight and unyielding like metal.

  “What you got in your hand there, boy? What you trying to steal from me?”

  Kyle tried to wrench his hand free, but the man’s grip was powerful. There was no give to it, no question of wriggling free from it.

  “Nothin’! I wasn’t trying to steal nothin’.”

  “Open your hand, boy. Open your hand or I swear to God above I’ll break it open.”

  Again, there was no question of refusal. Kyle did as he was told.

  The paralyzed man grunted when he saw the small scrap
of folded paper in Kyle’s palm. “Open it.”

  Kyle manipulated the slip of paper using the fingers of his free hand. He held it out for the paralyzed man to read.

  “‘Go to the green pond for your treasure.’ Treasure is misspelled. What’s it supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing. It don’t mean nothing. It’s a game.”

  “A game? A game? Why, you’re playing a game with the devil, son. Do you think I’m stupid? Do you think old Kenny Ahearn ain’t right in the head?”

  Kyle struggled as best he could. His hand had gone from tingly hot to blood-starved cold, then just numb. He pulled so hard to get away that he pulled the monstrous metal wheelchair forward just a bit.

  “Do you think I don’t know who you are?” the paralyzed man hissed at Kyle. Kyle could see his yellow teeth dotted with black spots of decay. Drool spilled lazily from one corner of his mouth. “You’re them that set that fire. You’re the ones. Firebugs. That’s you, boy. Firebug.”

  Kyle surprised himself by saying, “You’re crazy. Let me go. Let me go or I’ll tell!”

  “Kyle! Kyle!”—It was Grace. Kenny Ahearn and Kyle both looked up, their faces almost touching, and saw Grace standing at the road’s edge, the cornstalks towering behind her little girl’s body. Her cheap patriotic cape stood out in stark, absurd contrast to the verdant background. Grace turned away from them and yelled back into the corn, “Daddy! Daddy! Kyle’s right over here!” She turned back to face the boy and the man in the wheelchair on the porch. “Kyle, you better hurry up! Daddy’s been looking everywhere for you.”