The Nearly Complete Works, Volume 2

by Donald Harington

  “Sayonara,” she said.

  If she couldn’t wait, just think, Gentle Reader, of what I couldn’t do. There were still hours to kill before twilight. I went to Latha’s store and tried to sit on the porch, but I couldn’t sit still. I gave the whole store a good sweeping and even tidied up the office of the Star, which I hadn’t done for months. I arranged and rearranged merchandise on the shelves. “Dawny, you’re going to wear yourself out,” Latha said to me. And she observed, “You’re just covered with sweat all over.”

  “That’s okay, I’ll be washing it off directly,” I announced. I was almost tempted to tell her where and how I would be washing it off. All afternoon while I worked I thought of who would be the best person to talk to about my important upcoming tryst. I could really stand some advice. McPherson would have been my first choice, if he’d been accessible, but for all I knew he didn’t have much experience in such matters himself. I’d never been able to ask him just how far he had managed to get with Annie. I thought about Willard, and I had every reason to suspect that Gypsy had introduced him to the mysteries and pleasures, but he was Ella Jean’s own brother and I couldn’t ask for advice on how to handle his sister, and besides I wasn’t going to go up to his house looking for him, because that’s where Ella Jean was, and I wasn’t going to lay eyes on her again until we laid eyes on each other in our birthday suits. Thinking of that, I had a big doubt: what would she think when she saw me naked? I wasn’t even sure what I looked like naked. I needed a big mirror. The only one I knew of was in that side room of Latha’s store that had once been her bedroom when the store had still been her house too before she married Every and moved into the Dill dogtrot. So I waited until she’d gone home to start supper for her and Every and then I sneaked into that side room where the long mirror was. There I took off all my clothes and had a good look at myself, pretending I was Ella Jean…I mean pretending it was Ella Jean doing the looking at myself being me naked. While I had my clothes off, I suddenly had a déjà vu of the previous time in that room, when I was only five-going-on-six, when Latha, before Every had come back to Stay More to take her away from me, had let me sleep one night with her, and, because she never slept with a stitch on, had let me sleep naked too. And I had told her, without even knowing for sure what the word meant, that I loved her. I really had loved her, and I still did, but now I knew that it’s better to love someone your own age. Naked in that room, I remembered what Latha had replied when I’d told her that. “Oh, Dawny,” she’d said, “I love you too, and if you were a growed-up man I would marry you right this minute.”

  Later, as dusk gathered and I headed for the sacred spot on Banty Creek, I reflected on how appropriate it was that Latha had been the last person I had seen while I was still “normal.” I wished I could have told her that, and told her that I was on my way to being no longer a child.

  I reached the spot on Banty Creek, the idyllic spot of hogscalds and willows and music in the rippling water, but Ella Jean was not there. I was abashed at myself for being so overeager that I’d probably got there a long time before her, although the world was certainly already enfolded in twilight. All I could do was sit down on a rock and wait for her.

  Sitting there waiting and wondering when she’d come, I caught a whiff of that delectable Palmolive. My first thought was that she was coming down the hill and I could already smell it in her hand. But I waited and she did not appear. Could I possibly be smelling the remnants of Palmolive left over from her previous bath? No, nor was I simply wishing that I could smell it. It was in the air.

  I stood up. I sniffed. I moved around, sniffing, and turned, and moved the other way. I began to follow my nose. Not far. Just a little way upstream, into a thicket of thorny locust trees, a level open place beside the bank. Where she lay. My first thought was: she’s playing with me. I wanted to hold that thought, but it got entirely away.

  Chapter twenty-four

  When? Now. Summertime gloaming creekwater clean fresh Ella Jean. She lies still. I call her name. She does not move. “Don’t play,” I ask of her. Now I see the blood on her thigh. Crickets cicadas katydids tree frogs and a whippoorwill. She has no dress. She holds the bar of Palmolive clenched tightly in one fist as if it’s all she has in this world, and I think what a brave and strong girl she was to hold onto that Palmolive while she was being raped and strangled. I drop to my knees beside her, and tell myself I must touch her. She is still warm. I reach for the wrist of the hand holding the Palmolive. I have been crazy about this wrist since the second grade. I have been crazy about all of this, this whole human, since I was seven. My sweet, my secret passion. I try to feel for her pulse. Surely blood still pumps and throbs through this real strong and brave girl. But it does not. If it does, I cannot feel it. Can I never take her to the movies? You can just make things up. Can I make up for her a pulse she does not have? Ernie Pyle? Every Dill? Anybody? Gentle, oh Gentle Reader…

  I stand. I look around, hoping to see Emil Polacek lurking in the shadows. I will kill him with my bare hands, as he has killed her with his bare hands. But he is not there. There is nobody there. I am the only one there. Crickets cicadas katydids tree frogs and a whippoorwill. You don’t have much feelings, leastways you don’t show much feelings. I scream. With feelings I scream. At the top of my lungs I scream, loud enough for you to hear me, a thousand miles away or right here beside me, wherever you are, who can only watch and listen, who cannot bring this girl back to life to me to here to now to stay more forever. I scream loud enough for everyone in my town to hear me. I scream so that McPherson in his faraway hiding place at the glen of the waterfall can hear me. I scream so deafeningly that I deafen myself. I scream and scream and scream until I can no longer hear myself screaming. I can still hear crickets cicadas katydids tree frogs and a whippoorwill but only inside my head; I cannot hear myself. Am I making me up? I have a voice, a screaming voice, but I cannot hear it. Can you? You who have listened through all this, are you listening now? Can you hear what I cannot? Can you do anything? Gentle Reader with your magic that can make things go away or come again, can you not at least remind me that once I said to you When I dream of Ella Jean, either at night or whenever my conscious reveries need her, the loss of her at the end of the episode is always softened by the thought that she’ll return whenever I want? I scream because you cannot, you cannot, you can neither tell me that she’ll return nor that she is gone forever.

  I scream and scream, remembering Ella Jean saying I aint skeered as she stood up from hiding after the glider landed and they shot at her, even with blanks. My real strong and brave secret girl. Sweet potato pie, made with her own hands, even if the taste isn’t my favorite. I go on screaming even though I cannot hear myself. “Every word you say I want to keep,” I’d told her and now I have so few words of hers to keep, and none more to hear. Even if I could hear. Mister we’uns aint et our dinner yit and Polacek had poked fun at her voice. Where is the bastard?

  Here he comes. I am ready for him. I will sink my fingernails into that thick neck as he has sunk his into her little neck, and I will never let go, even when it thunders, because I will never hear the thunder. Even though his thick neck is covered with a beard. How has he grown such a beard so fast? Is he trying to disguise himself as murderer? And it is a grizzled beard. And the rifle he carries is not a shoju but a Winchester. And the clothes he wears are not a Japanese soldier’s uniform but faded denim overalls. I go on screaming although I go on not hearing myself. He holds out his hand as if to stop my scream. He helplessly motions with his hand to stop my screaming. Then he is shaking me with both hands to make me stop screaming. Finally I stop screaming not because he is shaking me but because I realize that I am continuing to scream even though I cannot hear myself. He is speaking to me. I am not hearing him. He is speaking to me over and over and I am not hearing him over and over. He looks at Ella Jean and seems to speak to her but he is speaking to me words I cannot hear. I am beginning to understand that he is not Polac
ek in disguise. I am beginning to believe who he is, though I have not seen him so close in longer than I can remember. I wish I could hear him, what words of comfort he seems to be trying to say with his mouth that moves but does not make any sound. Now he drops to his knees beside her and does what I have already done, lifts the frail lovely wrist and tries to find a pulse. He stands again and shakes his head and speaks to me again, and again I cannot detect any sound of any sort except all the crickets cicadas katydids tree frogs and a whippoor will, which is only in my head. He slides the straps of his overalls down from his shoulders, unbuttons and removes his shirt. What is he doing? I ask him what he is doing but no sound comes from my mouth so I do not know if I have spoken or not. He shows me what he is doing: he is covering Ella Jean’s nakedness as best he can with his shirt.

  Now comes the angel to take Ella Jean’s soul to heaven. But no, she only looks like an angel: it is this man’s daughter, following him, not able to keep up with him as he runs to find the source of the screaming. It is McPherson’s own living breathing true love, as mine is no longer living breathing. She holds both hands over her mouth as she looks at Ella Jean. She looks at me with revulsion as if I am responsible for this crime. She speaks to her father. He answers her but I can hear neither of them. Then he speaks to me again. I shake my head and whine I caint hear you! but do not know if I have uttered at all.

  Now comes a bunch of kids I should know, but I cannot convince myself I know them—friends maybe, Dinsmores maybe. Is one of them Willard? He speaks to me, and then he too must drop to his knees and feel for a pulse. Ole Dan speaks to him. The others speak, each to each. I speak, I speak, I speak, but do I? Willard yells at me, I can tell he is yelling because of the muscles in his neck and the look in his eyes and his mouth being open enough to eat a horse. But I can only wait until he has finished all the yelling and then I can only whine again, I caint hear you! He puts his mouth up against my ear and yells again, and I feel the hot rush of his breath into my ear but no sound at all.

  Ole Dan puts his hand on Willard’s shoulder and stops his yelling and then speaks to him again. The other Dinsmore children collapse upon their sister’s body. They are howling with sobs I cannot hear. Then Willard begins running, in the direction of town. I start after him, but ole Dan stops me. He tries to tell me what Willard is doing, where he is going, and finally I have enough sense returning to me to realize that in my hip pocket, folded, is a new Indian Chief tablet and in my shirt pocket is a pencil stub and I offer these to ole Dan, saying, whining I caint hear you could you please write down whatever you’re saying.

  And ole Dan takes my tablet and writes on it. He seems to write slowly as if he is having trouble making letters, but he is only trying to compose what he has to say. When he hands it back to me I am surprised at the elegance of his script. Willard must fetch Doc Swain. We mustn’t move her until Doc Swain has seen her, not that he can do anything for her, but he is the justice of the peace, after all. I am so thrilled to see these words. I have heard nothing yet, it is almost as if these written words are speaking to me, at last. Thank you, I cry, thank you so much!

  He holds out his hand for the tablet, and wants to write one more thing: There are many questions I’d like to ask you, but I’ll just wait and see if Doc Swain asks them.

  So there is nothing to do but wait. Now appears Ella Jean’s mother, Selena, who is holding her hands high above her head as if to catch Ella Jean’s soul before the angels can lift it to heaven.

  The angels may not be taking Ella Jean’s soul to heaven, but I think they have roused themselves up from whatever rest and recuperation they have been taking.

  Finally here comes a car on the Banty Creek road that goes to Spunkwater. It stops, then here is the sight of Doc Swain coming down to the creek. He is carrying his black bag, as if it contains anything that could save her. He talks to ole Dan. Ole Dan talks to him, and points at me, and talks some more. Doc gives me a look, but there is no accusation or suspicion in it. Doc does not lift her wrist but uses his stethoscope, briefly. Then he comes and I give him the Indian Chief and hold his flashlight for him while he writes down quite a lot of questions which I try to answer although I cannot tell if my voice is whining or calm or pleading or unruffled or what. Then he writes that he wants me and all the others present to turn our backs for just a moment while he completes his examination of the body. He says this aloud to them after I have read it. We turn our backs and wait, a long while. He touches my shoulder to let me know the wait is over. Then he examines me. He uses his stethoscope on me, and his hands, and tries to determine if I am feverish or ill in any way. He takes a thing from his bag and pokes it into each of my ears, and looks through the thing into my ears.

  It is full dark now. Annie has returned to their house and brought a kerosene lantern. More people continue to arrive. There is now a soldier there, one of the engineers, and soon two jeeps arrive behind Doc Swain’s car on the Banty Creek road, and there is Captain Billings of the engineers. And Major Evans, the umpire. These men stand around talking with Doc Swain and ole Dan. A soldier covers Ella Jean completely with an army blanket, including her face. I am tired of standing and wish I could sit down but I dare not. After a while there comes another car with a flashing light atop it, and here comes Sheriff Frank Cheatham all the way from Jasper, with two of his deputies. They talk to Doc Swain, they talk to Major Evans, they try to talk to me but Doc Swain talks to them and they stop trying to talk to me.

  There is a large crowd on the banks of Banty Creek. Willard is holding Gypsy while she cries, but his face is all soaked with tears too. Sammy Coe is also crying. Joe Don is asking questions of everybody. Two more jeeps come down the road, and there is Captain Stoving, and then there is Lieutenant McPherson, who rushes right to me, ignoring all the others, not saluting the major or anybody, not even looking at the sheriff, and puts his hands on my shoulders and starts talking real fast, and I would give anything to be able to hear him but I cannot. Doc Swain talks to him. I offer him the Indian Chief. He takes it and writes, Are you all right? I shake my head. I cannot hear my voice saying, “I am sorry I am deaf. I am so sad I caint tell you.” He writes furiously on the Indian Chief, This is terrible beyond belief. We will find the murderer and destroy him!

  “It was Polacek,” I inform him.

  His face is astonished. He writes, It couldn’t have been. Polacek has been with me up in the lost hollow all day and evening. He hasn’t been out of my sight.

  The sheriff talks to McPherson. McPherson answers him, then yells something at Captain Stoving. Everyone is yelling, except Gypsy, who cries and cries and cries.

  It is late. It gets later. I am so tired. McPherson writes in my Indian Chief, Come on. I’ll drive you home. I am so grateful for his offer. But first I must go and kneel and pull back the army blanket and give Ella Jean a kiss goodnight, a last kiss. Sayonara, I whisper to her, which is the last thing I’d said when she could hear me and now I cannot even hear myself nor can she. Then I tell McPherson I don’t want to go home. I don’t want to see my aunt and uncle. I want to spend the night with Latha. I’ll explain to your aunt, he writes, and she had better accept my explanation. In a jeep he takes me to Latha’s house. Latha and Every have already heard from others, and they embrace me. McPherson says he’ll see me first thing in the morning. Latha and Every put me to bed. Sometime away along in the night with no night sounds at all except the crickets in my head I finally finally finally drift into the arms of sleep.

  In the days that follow, McPherson is with me often. He becomes my ears and writes in my Indian Chief everything that is going on. The exercise is over. The Yanks never have found the lost glen of the waterfall, and therefore the Japs have won by default. Major Evans has wanted to continue the exercise but McPherson has refused. Another captain has arrived from Chaffee, a Military Police investigator, with a staff of MP lieutenants and sergeants, and they are questioning every man of the Yanks, the Japs, and the engineers. Private Polacek i
s heartbroken. At Ella Jean’s funeral he appears with an armful of wildflowers he has picked from all over. When they sing “Farther Along” he tries to join in. I cannot hear them singing it but I know they are singing it. Even if I could hear myself singing, which I cannot, I would not join the singing because I do not believe anymore that farther along anybody will ever understand anything, that farther along anybody will ever know all about it, that any one of us will ever understand it all by and by. I watch McPherson during the singing, and afterward I say to him, “You can’t believe this! Farther along we’re not going to understand anything!” He takes my Indian Chief and writes, Donny, the point of the hymn is not that we will ever have any final answers farther along but that there will be a farther along to look forward to.

  I tell him I don’t believe that either. What is there to look forward to? The army investigator cannot find the murderer, the sheriff cannot find the murderer, McPherson cannot, Willard cannot, I cannot, although I have tried: at my suggestion, since I have considered that if the rape occurred in that grove of thorny locusts there was a chance the culprit got himself scratched and blooded by thorns if Ella Jean put up any sort of struggle, every man in Stay More has been examined for thorn scratches. They have examined me too, and found none. None of the soldiers have any. Sog Alan has a bad scratch on his back but there are witnesses who can testify that Sog got the scratch from a nail in his barn. McPherson himself has had a serious talk with Sog and doesn’t think he’s guilty. The sheriff tells McPherson that there doesn’t appear to be any chance of finding a suspect among any residents of Stay More. The investigating MP captain tells McPherson that none of the soldiers can be held as suspects. So what is there to look forward to?

  Nor do I have a newspaper to publish anymore. McPherson offers to help me put out an issue of The Stay Morning Star, at least to carry the story that the “occupation” of Stay More is about to end, that the tanks have already returned to Chaffee and that the engineers and all the other soldiers will leave soon. I remember what Ella Jean had written on my plaster arm cast: Hope you go far with the Stay Morning-star, and I break down in sobs, not just from thoughts of sweet Ella Jean but also because I know I will not go anywhere any more, far or near, with my newspaper. Doc Swain has examined me twice again, once with what he writes are “tuning forks,” and he has written into my Indian Chief: It seems you must have howled away your hearing. He has told my aunt and uncle that they should take me to St. Louis to see a specialist, but they have no money for that. I am not going to be able to interview anybody, ever again. The Star is dead.