The Madman of Piney Woods

by Christopher Paul Curtis

  I felt rotten about how shook up I’d got my brother and sister.

  I really wasn’t doing it only for me when I said, “Stubby, if you go get a blanket, we can wait on the couch for them to come home.”

  He ran upstairs.

  Pay stood close to me and I wrapped my arm around her.

  She whispered, “Don’t tell Timmy, but Mother used to know him very well.”

  “What?”

  “Shh! It’s true. That’s why she gets so upset when people call him Madman. He was –”

  Stubby charged down the steps, dragging the blanket from his bed.

  I sat on the couch, and Pay and Stubby sat on each side of me. I flapped the blanket a couple of times until it settled over all of us. I felt like a mother hen when he snuggled under one of my arms and she the other.

  Stubby said, “Do you remember when we all slept in the same bed and you used to tell us stories to help us sleep, Benji?”

  I sort of did. I used to try to get them to sleep so I could sneak out of the bedroom window to run the woods at night with Spencer.

  Patience laughed. “I do! They were so funny and it seemed like I always had good dreams afterward.”

  I began to remember, but my memories went further back than theirs, and they came because I used to feel that same way when Mother would comfort me after a nightmare or when sleep just wouldn’t come.

  After Mother sang me a lullaby or told a silly story or just let her warm hand rest on my forehead, I felt comforted. I knew there’d be no more nightmares. I knew it was safe to sleep.

  They waited.

  I said, “All right. I’m rusty at this, but I can try.”

  I remembered they always wanted the stories to start the exact same way.

  I said, “A long, long time ago, even before there were clocks, in a forest so far from here that only eagles know the way there, lived two little trolls named Patience and Timothy. One wintry summer day, they decided …”

  I couldn’t believe how easy the stories started coming back.

  Pay and Stubby fell back to sleep much too quick. I wished they’d stayed awake longer.

  I was left alone with my thoughts.

  I wonder if he’d been right when he said the forest had judged me and him to be just alike. I think that’s what scared me most about seeing the Madman at the storytelling – not his wild eyes, not his scalped head, but the thought that he was right.

  Could that be me someday?

  Had he started out as someone like me who loved the woods too much and that made his mind slip off the tracks?

  My right arm started tingling and going numb from Stubby’s head.

  I slid my arm from underneath him.

  No, there isn’t any way that loving the woods could make you lose your mind. There had to be something more.

  Mother said he was lonely, but could that make you go mad?

  My left arm started feeling like it was going to sleep.

  I lifted Pay’s head. I took the knife she was still holding and set it on the back of the couch.

  Then I understood. If it was loneliness that had caused the Madm … had caused Mother’s friend to be so disturbed, then I didn’t have to worry. I had Mother and Father and Pay and Stubby to protect me from that.

  It’s funny. While they slept cuddled next to me under the blanket, I thought about the monarch butterfly cocoons that pop up every fall in the woods.

  This blanket was like a cocoon, and me and Stubby and Pay were three caterpillars safe inside.

  I stopped worrying about Mother’s friend; he wasn’t interested in hurting us or anybody else. He was wrong. Maybe the woods told him we were the same, but the woods didn’t know me when I was at home. But he was right when he said I was to be envied. I could do one thing he couldn’t. I could leave the woods and come home to my cocoon, my family.

  Being a reporter puts you in some real uncomfortable, dangerous spots. I’d followed Father’s advice and was taking the initiative with my work.

  Without Miss Cary assigning it to me, I was going to report on the Upper Canada Forensics Competition. I’d be at the contest to support Spencer anyway, so I could kill two birds with one stone.

  This time I was sure she was going to publish my article. How couldn’t she? It was going to be a touching story about how Spencer Alexander overcame so many things to be Buxton’s finest public speaker. I’d already written two endings for it, just in case. In the first ending, he was a gracious winner and thanked everybody he could think of. In the second ending, he was a gracious loser and thanked everybody he could think of.

  I was this close to passing out in the Buxton church where the contest was going on. Even though it was late September, it was hotter than July inside. All of the windows were open, but every breeze in Canada ignored the church.

  Right after the first speaker, I opened the rear door of the church to escape for a minute. After the heat from inside washed around me, and my eyes became accustomed to the bright light and the way everything seemed to shimmer, there he was, sitting on the back steps.

  One of the white Chatham boys had the same idea as me.

  He was wearing a wool jacket, a necktie, and knickers with thick wool stockings. A heavy wool cap sat next to him on the porch; he’d had sense enough to pull it off.

  It was hard to tell what this boy would look like on a day that wasn’t so hot, but with his bright red hair and freckles, it made me think someone had lit a match, then as a joke dressed it in knickers, a suit jacket, and a necktie.

  He gave me a little smile.

  “Hot enough for you?”

  For a second I wondered if he said this because he was being racialist. So many white Chatham people think, since most Buxton people come from the southern United States, we all love the heat. But it was just too hot to get worked up over words, no matter what they meant.

  He was friendly when he spoke and looked right in my eye. That said something.

  I answered, “As hot as it is for me, I know it’s ten times hotter for you. Are you wearing those winter clothes because you’ve heard there’s going to be a sudden blizzard?”

  He laughed. “I suppose I could take the jacket off. My grandmother’s nowhere around, after all. I only have one suit and it’s for winter; she insisted I wear it.”

  His jacket had been carefully patched at the elbows, his shirt was soaked, its collar and cuffs frayed. His clothes were far from new, but everything he wore had been pressed and washed and starched to within an inch of its life.

  He carefully folded the limp, damp jacket over his knee. “Whew!”

  I said, “Are you in the forensics competition?”

  “Oh, no, I’m here supporting my friend. When he wins the competition today, it will be his third time.”

  That meant he was here with that Holmely boy from Chatham. The one who was cheated out of first place two years ago.

  I snorted, “Well, we’ll see.”

  He said, “Oh. You’re supporting someone else?”

  “My friend Spencer Alexander. You and that Holmely boy shouldn’t start counting your chickens yet. Spence has got a pretty good chance to win, you know.”

  The boy said exactly what I was fearing. “I hope your friend hasn’t gotten his hopes up too high; you know his only real chance is second place.”

  What could I say? The reddish white boy was right, and I could tell he was joshing me. Plus, he did give a huge beaming smile when he said it.

  His gums seemed to follow suit with his hair. I was surprised that his teeth weren’t red too.

  He said, “Don’t fret. Second place isn’t bad … it’s just not quite as good as first.”

  We laughed.

  “My name is Benji Alston.”

  I stuck my hand out. His hand was as hot and sweaty as you’d expect it to be, but he gave me a very firm shake.

  “I’m Alvin Stockard. But I’ll bet you a wooden nickel that you can’t guess what everyone calls me.”
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br />   I couldn’t help smiling. It would be hard for even as good a debater as Spencer or the Holmely boy to disprove that a cardinal and a beet hadn’t been married and given birth to this boy. Then baptized him in a tub of red ink.

  I said, “Uh, let me guess. Do they call you Tex?”

  He looked surprised. “Why, no, they call me Re – Oh, you’re being facetious.”

  “Does it bother you when people call you Red?”

  “It did when I was younger, but if you get called the same thing enough different times by enough different people, you catch on that the writing’s on the wall. You can either fight every day of your life or learn to live with it.”

  “OK, if you don’t mind, I’ll call you Red.”

  “And I shall call you Benji.”

  We shook hands again.

  “So why aren’t you in the forensics competition, Benji?”

  I was proud to answer, “I’m a newspaperman. I like telling about things that are happening, not arguing about them. Why aren’t you?”

  “I’m not an arguer either. I’m a scientist. I can’t think of any occupation that’s more important than understanding what makes things tick, and science is the best way to do that.”

  He stopped and then said, “But of course being a newspaperman is probably important too.” His eyes rolled.

  I said, “So I guess when it comes to having an important job, I’m just like Spencer in some ways; I have to get used to second place.”

  He sounded surprised. “Benji! As a scientist, I must say I’ve observed that you have a great and winning attitude when dealing with your circumstances!”

  “Well, as a newspaperman, I have to say I’ve only known you for a minute and I can report that you are a huge pain in the buttocks. I’ve also observed that if you keep sitting around in those winter clothes, you’ll soon be coming back to this church for your own funeral.”

  I sat on the step next to him and started pulling off my shoes and stockings.

  “But, Red, you’ve helped me make up my mind. Since everybody already knows who’s going to win this competition, and I’ve already got most of my article written, I’m not going to sit in there and come to a slow boil just to watch Spencer get second place. There’s a great swimming hole not far from here. Want to go cool off?”

  My words really distressed the boy. His eyes darted from the door of the church to his jacket to me, then to the woods, then back to his jacket. You would’ve thought I asked him to tag along while we robbed a bank and murdered a teller or two.

  “Uh, I … well, my grandmother told me not to wander from the church.”

  “Suit yourself, but if you go back in there, it would be thinking scientifically to leave that coat off.”

  I tied my shoes together, stuffed my stockings inside, and stepped off the front steps.

  I shouted over my shoulder, “Tell Spence congratulations on coming in second.”

  I hadn’t gone fifty yards when I heard, “Ow! Ow! Benji! Wait! Ow! Ow!”

  I turned back. Red had pulled his stockings off and stuffed them in the shoes that dangled over his shoulder with his jacket.

  He was very much a tenderfoot. Every step he took started with a scowl and ended with an “Ow!”

  I said, “My feet are like that in the early spring when I haven’t gone barefoot for months; you might want to put your shoes on until they toughen up a bit.”

  “Good idea. I’d hate for my career as a pioneer to be ended so quickly by a thorn.”

  He sat on the trail and slipped his feet into his shoes.

  “Oh, that’s so much better.”

  We weren’t even into the forest when Red started losing his courage.

  “So how far off is this swimming hole, Benji?”

  “Not far.”

  “How long do you suppose we’ll stay there?”

  “Not long.”

  I knew once he got into the water, he’d see what a good idea this was.

  “Are you sure we’re going the right way? Everything looks the same to me. We aren’t lost, are we?”

  “Look, Red. You’ve got to trust me. I told you I was going to be a newspaperman, but the second career I have in mind means I know the forest.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. If I can’t be a reporter, my plan is to learn how to be a hermit.”

  He laughed. “Where does one go to learn how to be a hermit?”

  I waved my arms. “This is my classroom right here. And these are my teachers. The trees and the sky and the animals and most especially the floor of the forest. If I need to get information on anything that’s happened, I look at the ground and it’s like I’ve opened a book.”

  Red said, “How’s that?”

  Maybe I wasn’t being fair, but this little Chatham boy was the most naïve human being I’d ever met.

  He was smart, but he believed everything I said about the woods. I told him that I could tell by the piece of deer scat on one of the trails that it was a sign that the Madman of Piney Woods had taken his pet bear out for a walk with a raccoon riding on its back when a giant eagle grabbed the raccoon and flew off to the mountains.

  My conscience started bothering me right after I told it. This was too easy. This was shooting fish in a barrel. It reminded me of the way Patience used to believe everything I said when she was really young. There had been no sport in teasing her then, and there was none in teasing Red now. He seemed like a decent enough boy, so I held off.

  My way of apologizing without actually saying sorry would be to show him the secret swimming hole. That would make up for far more than a little teasing. Besides, it seemed like this little redheaded boy from Chatham could dish it out just as well as he could take it.

  This Buxton lad named Benji proved to be a fine favourable fellow. Not only was he exceedingly clever, he also knew the woods as well as he knew the palm of his hand. And what most amazed me was, even though I’m sure he wasn’t aware of doing it, he was applying his knowledge in a manner that was purely scientific!

  He wasn’t making his judgments based on being familiar with a particular section of the woods; he had what we scientists call a paradigm and applied it to each situation. As we walked deeper and deeper into the forest toward the promised swimming hole, he never let the conversation lag. He pointed out many things that my eyes had simply brushed over and thought nothing of.

  Where I barely noticed a mishmash of tiny, bleached bones at the base of a huge oak, he looked up and pointed out the massive, hidden nest of a great horned owl. One, he said, judging by the bones, that had been living there for six years.

  Where I saw grass, he saw a place where a doe had hidden its fawn a few hours before.

  Where I saw stones and moss and lichen and twigs, he saw stories. Stories available only to those who knew the language, only decipherable by those who paid careful attention. If this little Buxton boy hadn’t been so confused and misled by his desire to be a reporter, he might even have made a halfway decent scientist. I was very impressed!

  I was less impressed by his attempts to explain why being a reporter was so important. Besides leaning a tad too much toward braggadocio, he talked to me as if I was something of an idiot. Maybe in his eyes I was, maybe since a leaf was nothing but a leaf to me, he assumed I was dense in all areas.

  “So,” he said, “there are two reasons that I’m more of a noticer than most people, most people our age especially. The first reason is –”

  He stopped walking and pointed at a small group of saplings.

  “Red, do you remember the fawn I told you about before?”

  Of course I did; it had only been a minute or two earlier.

  “The poor thing is dead.”

  “Really?” I peered at the young trees he was pointing out. “How can you tell?”

  “By the way that one sapling is leaned to the side. The doe put up a brave fight to save her fawn’s life, but in the end, she was no match for the coyote. Though all didn’t t
urn out well for the coyote either.”

  He pointed at an area that to me simply looked like a growth of weeds where a few had been blown down.

  “Just as the coyote settled in to eating the poor fawn, a rare North Woods alligator ambushed the coyote and ate both of them.”

  This was too much! “An alligator in the forest?”

  “I told you it was a rare alligator; not many people know about them.”

  It was incredible! All I could see were some weeds and a small tree leaning as if it were trying to get the sun’s rays. Perhaps Benji’s eyes were keen far beyond mine, but while my heart wanted to believe him, my head wasn’t buying this story. I began to suspect he was as good a storyteller as he was a woodsman.

  He continued, “The first reason I’m more of a noticer is exactly because I’m studying to be a newspaperman. I can’t think of anything, anything that’s more important than that. A reporter lets people know what is happening in the world, and what caused them to happen.”

  Benji misinterpreted my look; he thought I didn’t believe him. It wasn’t that at all. I was still in thrall at his ability to read the woods, and I remembered what Father had told me, that many times a flaw in an argument is so obvious that we tend to look right past it, that it was so hard to see because it had been hidden in plain sight. And this alligator story had big flaws from first word to last.

  “I’ve even got books that prove nothing’s more important than a newspaper,” Benji said. “One book says, ‘The press is at once the eye, the ear, the tongue of the people. It is the visible speech if not the voice of the democracy. It is the phonograph of the world.’ ”

  He gave me a look.

  “You do know what a phonograph is, don’t you?”

  “Of course I do! Our Father Ted has two of them.”

  He stopped walking.

  I looked around to try to see if I could figure out what the next woods lesson was going to be.

  I was certain I picked it out. There was a spot where a stone rested at an odd angle against the side of a tree. Several pinecones were arranged around the rock in a way that, once I studied them, didn’t appear random or haphazard.

  I pointed at the spot with the strangely placed stone and pinecones.