The Madman of Piney Woods

by Christopher Paul Curtis

  My comeuppance came when the fourth time I almost sat, an Irish woman’s voice boomed from the just-opened front door, “Chester Stockard, you’re supposed to be the wisest old judge in Chatham, yet ye leave the front door wide open so that any jacksnipe can come in and get his foul revenge on ye and your poor innocent family?”

  As a cold shiver ran through my body and heat flushed through my face, I quickly lost my courage and forgot all about leaping through the picture window. Even more shamefully, I also forgot about my heroic plan to grab Benji and escape with him.

  Knocking over the chair I had been pretending I was going to sit in, I ran toward the kitchen and shouted, “Oh, Benji! Please! For the love of God, run!”

  I’m not certain if I could have reacted as quickly as Benji did were it me being yelled at in such a manner, but my friend never hesitated.

  I can only imagine the confused look that must have come to Father’s face when Benji hollered over his shoulder, “Thank you very much for having me over for supper, sir, the conversation was stimulating, your company was exhilarating, and that was one of the finest meals I’ve ever had!”

  Benji jostled past me as we ran through the kitchen and spilled out onto the back porch.

  “Keep running!” I yelled. “Don’t listen to anything she says; she’s very confused!”

  Three blocks from home, just outside of the funeral parlour, I grabbed the back of Benji’s jacket and pulled him to a stop. I leaned over, put my hands on my knees, and gasped to him, “She has rheumatism. I’m fairly certain we’re safe. I don’t think she can run this far.”

  “You don’t think who can run this far? Who are we running from?”

  “Grandmother O’Toole!”

  “Who?”

  “My mother’s mother.”

  “Your grandmother? We’re running like this from your grandmother?”

  He did make it seem fairly ridiculous.

  “Take my word for it, Benji. She’s not like anyone you’ve ever met.”

  This made no impression whatsoever on him, so I added, “You don’t understand. She’s directly from Ireland!”

  Benji still failed to grasp the seriousness of my fears. He looked around and said, “I sure hope Stubby and Pay aren’t out here spying on me. I’ll bet you anything Mother would say that running out of your house like that is the height of disrespect and rudeness. If they did see what happened, I’m going to be spending a lot of time in the Amen Corner.”

  We must have presented quite the cowardly sight. I was looking fearfully down the street, half expecting to see a thousand-year-old Irishwoman toddling after us with her cane cutting through the air much like the grim reaper’s scythe, and Benji was nervously sweeping his eyes from pillar to post to be certain he hadn’t been seen by his sweet young siblings.

  “Well, if your parents do try to give you time in the Amen Corner, I’ll be happy to testify on your behalf. I’ll let them know you were the most polite and well-behaved guest we’ve ever had. I don’t believe anyone else has ever complimented Father on how stimulating his conversation was before he’d said even three words!”

  Benji said, “Ha-ha.”

  “And I must say I’ve never seen anyone go from a complete standstill to full speed in such a short period of time.”

  Benji said, “If you could’ve seen the shade of red you turned when you heard your grandmother’s voice, believe me, you would have gotten out of there just as fast as I did!”

  I said, “Regardless, I’m so pleased that you enjoyed the food as much as you did; it has to have been special if you loved it without even tasting it!”

  He laughed. “It was a mystery at first, Red, but I’m beginning to understand why you have no friends. Do you think if we apologized to your father, he’d still serve us supper?”

  Oh, no! How could I explain?

  “Benji, I don’t think that’s a good idea. Maybe you should come back at the end of next month or …”

  “Alvin Stockard! There ye are, lad!”

  The woman’s heavy Irish brogue made panic course through my veins for a second time.

  “And what on earth caused such a rude display? Your poor mother must be spinning in her grave!”

  I began to run but heard “Ye must be Alvin’s friend, Benjamin. ’Tis a pleasure to meet ye. My name’s Lily Collins. I’m a friend of Alvin’s dear grandmother.”

  I turned back and saw Grandmother O’Toole’s best friend, Miss Lily the baker, shaking hands with Benji.

  “Pleased to meet you, ma’am.”

  “We’d’ve met a bit earlier, but the way the two of you bolted from the house like it was afire prevented that. Alvin’s father had asked me to bring a pie over for your dessert tonight.”

  She looked hard at me and said to Benji, “Do accept our apologies for the doltish lad here. Some of the time, we think he’s too bright for his own good.”

  “No need to apologize, ma’am. I look at my friendship with him as a huge act of charity.”

  Miss Lily laughed. “Ye’ve a fine sense of humour, Benjamin. We have a saying in Ireland that a light heart lives long. I suspect ye’ll be around for quite a while.”

  “Thank you.”

  I said, “It’s good to see you, Miss Lily.”

  She said, “You!” She slapped the back of my head as she walked away.

  Benji said, “Now, let me understand this. We’re supposed to be afraid of only certain Irish grandmothers, not all of them?”

  “You’ll never understand, Benji.”

  “All I want to understand now is if that food is really as good as I told your father it was. I’m starving. Do you suppose if we keep a sharp eye for Irish grandmothers, we might go back and I can get seconds of the best meal I’ve never had?”

  I was so relieved that I said, “For sure, Benjamin.”

  I couldn’t resist adding, “But you know, my father is a bit hard of hearing. You should probably speak a bit louder to make certain he’s understanding everything you say.”

  Benji said, “Thanks, Red.”

  I couldn’t wait to get home and hear this!

  Chumming around with Benji was turning me into a real trickster.

  Miss Cary enjoys rejecting articles. Not only mine.

  More than once, I was working about in the shop when one of the real reporters would come out of her office with a very upset expression and the cheerful words “Now, off you go” following behind them.

  The only good thing was I could see it wasn’t personal.

  Right after Mr. Thames came scowling out of her office, Miss Cary called, “Ben-jamin!”

  I went in.

  There was another flyer on her desk.

  “How about three hundred words due on Monday at nine sharp?”

  The flyer told about a farmer charging people to see the mounted head of a huge deer. It was supposed to have a record rack and weigh more than three hundred pounds. He’d shot it near one of his fields.

  I could never shoot a deer. Maybe it has something to do with the animal’s size. Maybe the bigger something is, the closer it is to God.

  Or maybe it’s their eyes; a deer’s eyes are so … so … Gentle is the only word I can use to describe them. Whatever the reason, even if I was carrying a rifle large enough and sighted in on a deer, I know my finger would be a frozen lump on the trigger.

  I told Miss Cary, “Yes, ma’am,” but my heart wasn’t going to be in this article.

  When I reached home, Mother and Father were sitting on the front porch.

  “Good evening, Benjamin,” Mother said. “How is Miss Cary doing?”

  “Good evening, Mother, Father. Miss Cary is fine.”

  Father said, “Any good word on getting something published?”

  “No, Father, nothing. She’s given me the assignment to write an article about a huge deer getting shot.”

  Father said, “I heard ’bout that. Up near Chatham, on Lennox Burroughs’s farm, I think.”

  �
�I don’t want to write it. I don’t see how anyone can shoot a deer.”

  “Benji,” Father said, “it just ain’t in some folk’s nature to kill, not no large game anyway. Some folks is just too fra-gile to do it.”

  I scowled. Nobody wanted to be called fragile.

  Mother quickly added, “Now, son, there’s not a thing wrong with that. This world would be a whole lot better place if we had more gentle-souled folks rather than those who are happy to shoot anything they see.”

  Father smiled that little lopsided smile of his and said, “TooToo, you should say they’s happy to shoot anything they sees … long as it ain’t shooting back.”

  He added, “It brings to mind what happened a ways back in the North Woods, Benji. You wasn’t but six or seven and we was headed back from fishing.”

  Mother sighed. She’d heard this story more times than she wanted to.

  I don’t remember the things Father described and have always wondered if it was true, because if it happened the way he says it did, it would be something hard to forget, even for a six-year-old. I don’t know if Father always brings it up to teach me a lesson or to poke fun at me or maybe he’s just misremembering what really happened.

  “You and me was out in the North Woods coming back from fishing. Even back then, I knew you was gonna be a great outdoorsman one day ’cause we’re walking along and you all the sudden stops and shushes me.

  “I stopped and I’ll be blanged if there wasn’t a strange sound.

  “I remember you said it was off to the right and I said it was off to the left, and you was right.

  “The sound was coming out of some thick underbrush. I told you to wait while I checked what it was.

  “I pulled some of the growth aside and my heart broke. I told you, ‘Some fool’s done lung-shot a doe. Give me your knife, Benjamin.’

  “You give it to me, then when you saw the doe, Benji, you done something I never expected. You looked like you was dumbstruck; you put your hands atop your head and started walking back home without saying a word.

  “That’s probably why you’s a little sensitive about deer, son, but like your momma say, ain’t nothing wrong with that.”

  I don’t know why Father tells that tale. Usually, Mother’s the one you can expect that sort of thing from, what the old folks call prettying-up a story. Father’s stories are usually close to the truth.

  Whenever he’d recount the story of the deer in the forest, it always left me scratching my head in wonder.

  I should have started over to the Burroughs’ farm to write my article. Instead, I went into the woods to think about how I was going to do it. I know a good reporter wouldn’t let his personal feelings get in the way of what he was writing unless he could do it in a very sneaky way.

  I was sitting near the river when the woods whispered, “He’s near.”

  He was coming from the back, but I didn’t let on I knew.

  He said, “I hear tell you’s a reporter.”

  I never turned around.

  “Yes, sir, I’m trying to be one.”

  “You report on you and me talking?”

  “Why, no, sir, that’s no one’s business but ours.”

  “Good, good.”

  He threw a stone into the water.

  “So what kinda things you reporting on?”

  “Not that anyone will ever know, but I’m supposed to do an article on a deer.”

  “Deer?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Folks so desperate for news now that they looking to read about deer?”

  “This was a special one. He’s supposed to have had the largest rack on any deer in Canada and weighs three hundred and sixty-five pounds. It’s supposed to be a record.”

  “He’s dead?”

  “Yes, sir. Mr. Burroughs shot it on his farm. He’s charging people to come look at it and I’m supposed to –”

  “He shot him?”

  “He shot the buck, sir.”

  “Huge rack? Three hundred sixty pounds?”

  “They say.”

  “A shame, a rotten shame. That the Old Grandfather. That deer older than you by a lot. A shame, a rotten shame. And they showing off his head?”

  “Yes, sir, he’s charging …”

  I turned around and he was gone.

  They didn’t say it exactly, but I took that to mean the woods were telling me, “Go fishing. Your deadline for the article isn’t up for four days. You can do it later.”

  I went to the tree where I hide my pole and took the woods’ advice.

  * * *

  I’m going to have to listen to the trees more carefully! Their advice to wait to write the article was perfect.

  I went to the Burroughs’ farm on Sunday and as soon as I knocked on the front door of the farmhouse, I was greeted by a double-barrel shotgun behind the screen!

  I put my hands in the air and said, “Sir, I’m a reporter for the Chatham Freedman come to do a story on your deer head.”

  My heart was doing somersaults in my chest.

  The farmer pushed open the screen door and pointed the gun at the ground. He was a large white man with a wad of tobacco in his cheek.

  “Well, you’re too late, boy. Someone done run off with the head.”

  “It was stolen?”

  “That’s right. Had it in the loft of the locked barn with dogs all ’round it, and some thief got it anyway.”

  He swore and spit to the side.

  “Maybe I can write about that and someone will give it back.”

  He said, “Write what you want; it’s probably in Toronto by now. That buck was worth a lotta money. I’d-a had the record.”

  He showed me where he had kept the deer’s head and he was right. It was high in the loft of his barn. He’d first had to shoo away three huge dogs.

  I wrote my article when I got home. It was pretty good. It turned out to be interesting because it had a mystery in it.

  One thing that wasn’t mysterious was what happened when I turned my article in.

  It was no surprise on Monday morning when the words “Now, off you go” chased me out of Miss Cary’s office.

  Curly said, “Pa come home drunk and real upset early the other morning.”

  This caught my attention. Not that Curly’s father had stumbled into their house drunk and raised Cain, but the fact that Curly was talking to me about it. His father’s drunkenness was Curly’s most tender spot. It was the place where we dared not tread, the same as Petey’s mixed blood or the Baylis boys’ older brother who had been hanged in the United States. Besides, it would be a stretch to say Curly and I are friends, especially not friends who would confide in each other.

  His words hung in the air. I didn’t know what to say.

  He went on, “I ain’t never told no one this, Red, but every once in a while when Pa’s on a bender, he whups us. He’s been hitting us like we was full-grown men for years. He didn’t this time, not to start, but he roused us all out of our sleep and made me and Quincy and Ma sit ’round the table at about three in the morning. When I saw that he had the Bible on the table in front of him, I wished we’d-a just got whupped.”

  I nodded.

  “He said we was all gonna stand up and, one by one, with our hand on the Bible, swear we wouldn’t tell a soul what he was gonna say.”

  He paused.

  “Ma swore first and slid the Bible to Quincy. He told Pa the same thing I was feeling. He said he waren’t doing it, that he didn’t trust his own mouth and didn’t want to go to hell for breaking his word on the Bible. Said Pa shouldn’t tell him no secrets, that he should just let him go back to bed in peace.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Ma starts bawling and begs Quince to swear for Pa, that it won’t hurt him to do it, that God will forgive him if he makes a mistake.

  “Quince still won’t do it. Him and Pa are standing face-to-face. I was across the room and could smell the rotgut on Pa’s stinking mouth from that far.
”

  Curly went quiet.

  “So Quincy didn’t swear not to tell? You didn’t either?”

  Curly said, “I saw what Pa done to Quince. He ended up swearing on the Bible anyway, so I swore too.”

  He laughed. “Only difference was I didn’t come out of it knocked loopy with a busted lip.”

  I still didn’t know what to say.

  “That ain’t right, is it? You can’t get forced to swear to do something wrong on the Bible. Right, Red?”

  I felt as though I’d been slapped.

  I said, “It doesn’t seem right to me, especially if you were forced to do it. But …”

  Curly said, “But nothing. Pa was wrong and what he done out in the woods was wrong.”

  I was dying to hear what Curly’s father had done, but Curly was having second thoughts. He started doing what Father says people do in court if they’re uncomfortable with telling the whole truth right off the bat. Father says they gift wrap the story. I was going to have to listen to a bunch of ribbons and bows and wrapping paper and excelsior and wadded newspapers before I finally got to Curly’s gift, the thing he really wanted to say.

  “Pa starts this demon laugh he’s got and says, ‘They needs to give me a medal. I should be in the papers for what I done! But you think that’ll happen? Of course not; one of ’em will have something smart to say about it, and sooner or later, it’s all going to boil down to ‘Let’s throw Phineas in the hoosegow.’

  “Pa says, ‘Folks been talking ’bout that scoundrel for years, but these fools in Chatham ain’t done a thing. They ain’t real men; they all talk.’

  “Pa threw a plate into the wall and said, ‘Well, Phineas R. Bennett will be respected from now on! They won’t want to, but now they ain’t gonna have no choice. They’ll all have to say I’m a man what gets things done! I’m a real man.’ ”

  Curly stared out at the river.

  I said, “Curly! What did he do?”

  Curly said, “Me and Quincy looks at each other. Pa ain’t talking to no one in particular, and if it waren’t for Ma being trapped there, we’d-a left. Or jumped him.

  “Pa drops his head down on the table and starts sobbing, and that ain’t never good.

  “The carving knife wasn’t but a couple of inches from Pa’s hand.”