The Nearly Complete Works, Volume 1

by Donald Harington

  All of them except Diana herself seemed to be high on the marijuana. Day was glassy-eyed but restless. Zephaniah and Esaias stopped pounding on their guitars. The conversation trickled out, but the pipe continued on its rounds.

  Day stood up. He spread his arms wide. He announced, “I am a tree.”

  “Go to sleep, Day,” Diana said.

  16

  Fush to Bungtown! Day unto day, my mother lies abed but she is not dying. All her talk is of what a pretty place Emmeline has in Illinois. Once, irked, I blurted, “Why didn’t you stay there?” And she wept. And a little harder I had to harden my heart. The tree of me grows around a stone in its bosom.

  I haven’t told her it was Renz. I haven’t told a soul. But I wait for him. Before the April rains came, I went back to the charcoal pits and searched all the ground around; in the mud were my own bootprints and at least two of my father’s bootprints, but one bootprint which was different. I mixed a plaster and poured it in and let it harden, and now I have this cast of it, this print, and I am waiting, and if it matches his boot I warrant me I will kill him.

  It’s time to plant peas, my mother says. If I could just get up long enough, she says. If you won’t tend the garden, she says, we’ll sure to starve. I’ve never done a garden, but she tells me how, and watches from her window. But something tells me that we won’t be here to harvest it.

  I beg the Jenners for a job of work, but though they have plenty of work they say they have nothing to pay me. It comes, in time, to my begging to do their work for the pay of five pounds of flour and ten pounds of dry beans. Old Eph Parmenter pays me a pound of salt pork to shovel the dressing from his cow stalls and spread it on his fields; it takes me two days, and twice I have a glimpse of Violate but I calculate old Eph has given her to know that she can’t even come out of the house and speak to me.

  I can cook a fair bait of beans, but Mother gets tired of it, and so do I. She tells me to use Dad’s gun. Three days in the wood bring home a partridge, a gray squirrel, a red squirrel, and two pigeons, and I’ve used up all the shells but one. One. One to save.

  Most days I can find no work. Sometimes I fish in Bonny Brook or go beyond the mountain to the river, the Housatonic, which means in the Indian tongue “beyond the mountains.” Mostly, though, I just walk the woods and roads, waiting for Renz to show again. I plan a lot about how I will knock him down and take off his boot and take the boot home to see if it matches the cast. Once while I’m walking in the woods it comes on to rain and I get myself under the old big boulder in Parmenter’s back pasture, and there is this girl there, this stranger, prettier than Violate, with light hair, but older than Violate; I guess she is just hiding from the rain too, and right off she asks me if I know where I am.

  Sure, I say. Looks to be old Landlocked Whale.

  She asks me, Is that what you call it?

  What I call it, I say. Some jist call it The Rock.

  Very talky she is, and asks, How far is your house from here?

  As near as no matter, I say, fooling with her.

  She keeps on. How near is that? she asks.

  Two whoops an’ a holler, I say.

  Then she says something so peculiar I begin to wonder if she is touched. You’re looking at me, she says. Can you see me?

  So I say, Naw, I’m blind a one eye, ’n can’t see out th’other.

  Really? says she.

  ’Course I can see you, nimsky! Who are ye, anyhow?

  Then she says, You don’t know me? as if I should.

  Well, I say to her, You aint Violate, less ye blanched your hair. Violate? she says. Violate what?

  T’aint what but who, I tell her.

  Violate who, then? she says.

  Violate Parmenter.

  I know then she must be a stranger from way off, because she asks, Is that a name?

  Naw, it’s a gull! I say and laugh.

  Who is she?

  Eph Parmenter’s gull, I tell her and then I ask, Who are you?

  But she won’t tell me her name. We keep on talking, and I ask her how she happened to be here in the belly of the Landlocked Whale and she says she’s waiting for the rain to stop and she’s lost. I ask her where she’s lost from and she says Dudleytown and I tell her it’s not but right down the hill and I offer to show her how to get there, if she’ll tell me which house she wants, and then she says it’s my house she’s looking for, and I wonder what she’s going there for, and she says she wants to meet my father, she’s some distant relation of his.

  My father’s dead, I say. Didn’t you know that?

  No, she says. I’m sorry to know that. When did he die?

  Few months back. Fell in one a the charcoal pits. ’Least that’s what people think. I shouldn’t wonder but what he ’uz pushed.

  She asks me now, Who do you think pushed him?

  I haven’t told a soul this, but for some reason this girl makes me tell her, so I say, Ferrenzo Allyn, that skunk.

  “Stop, Daniel. Are you really under that rock with that girl?”

  Stop, Daniel, she says. Are you really under that rock with that girl. My head feels peculiar.

  “Open your eyes, Daniel. Now look at me. Am I that girl?”

  Open your eyes, Daniel, she says. I didn’t know they were closed. Now look at me, she says. Am I that girl? she asks me.

  Yes, you are that girl. You make my head hurt.

  “Tell me what I’m wearing.”

  Tell me what I’m wearing, she says. I wish I had never met you Now you’re making my body hurt too. You are wearing some man’s denim trousers and a lady’s waist with the sleeves cut off.

  “Do other women in Dudleytown dress like this?”

  Do other women in Dudleytown dress like this? she asks me. Not generally, no.

  “Then how can I be in Dudleytown, in this year of 1895 or 1896? Are you sure that you met me under the rock? Are you really remembering me?”

  You make my head hurt so, with your questions.

  “Who are these other people here?”

  Who are these other people here? she asks me. I don’t know, I’ve never seen them before, except those two, that one’s Jared Story, and that one’s Renz Allyn and I’m going to kill the sonofabitch.

  Him? He’s Renz Allyn? Are you sure? Does Renz Allyn have a beard and long hair?”

  He could easily of growed it while he’s been gone to Goshen these three months, to try and disguise hisself so’s I wouldn’t be able to know him when he comes sneaking back to Dudleytown.

  “Daniel, look at me. Are you absolutely certain that you met me under the rock called the Landlocked Whale when you were fifteen years old?”

  I aint absolutely certain of nothing any more.

  “Go on, then. Forget me. You didn’t meet me under the rock. It was something you dreamed, maybe. Go on, until it is later, until you meet Renz Allyn again. Did he come back to Dudleytown? Did you meet him again?”

  I do meet him again, yes, though he has disguised himself with a beard and long hair.

  “No, Daniel. This isn’t Renz Allyn. Close your eyes and quit looking at him. This isn’t Renz Allyn but somebody you don’t know, whose name is Zephaniah.”

  He is too Renz Allyn or my name aint Dan Montross. That disguise of his don’t fool me a bit.

  “Close your eyes, Daniel. Now, tell what happens. What happens when you meet Renz? Where do you meet him?”

  Where do you meet him? she asks me. I see him here in the belly of the Landlocked Whale.

  “No, you’re confused. You didn’t see him under that rock, did you?”

  No, you’re confused, she tells me. Yes, I am confused, but I know I see him in the belly of the Landlocked Whale because he has come here to lie and wait for Violate to sneak out and meet him, probably, but probably Eph Parmenter won’t let her out of the house, and so Renz has fallen asleep while he’s waiting for her, and I know it’s him even though he has let his hair and beard to grow, so I tear off for home as fast as I can ru
n, and I haven’t even run that fast the time I tried to beat him home but I’m not running out of fear of him, no, but to get my cast of the plaster I poured into the bootprint and to get my father’s old gun with the one shell left in it, and then I run back as fast as I can tear toward the Landlocked Whale but when I get there Violate has come up and joined him and the two of them have already begun funicling as fast as they can funicle, as if old Eph has just let her leave the house for two minutes to go to the privy or something and she has to get it over with and get right back, so I know that I can’t kill him there while she’s around because I can’t have any witnesses, but at least I can sneak up and try matching the print with his boot, him funicling her without even taking off his boots or even dropping his trousers but just poking his perkin through his fly and into her, the two of them so busy funicling with groans and grunts and gasps they don’t even notice me sneak up and match the plaster with the sole of his boot, which matches like a key fits a lock, no mistake whatever, and I nearly went ahead and put the bullet through both of them but I still loved Violate some who was the only thing even like a girlfriend or a girl or a female I had in all the world, so I waited for her to leave and go back to the house but when she did go back to the house Renz got up and went with her, at least as far as the pasture gate and by then he was too far for me to get a good shot at him and too close to the house anyway so I cut off through the woods to meet him on the road and hope that he would come and get a good look at me and know who it was that was going to put a bullet between his eyes or into his wretched heart and maybe even listen to him beg for mercy before I shoot him down like a dog, but when he comes, around a bend in the road, I see he’s not alone but walking with his old chum Jared Story and rubbing himself in his crotch and bragging to Jared, Boy oh boy I funicled that gull so hard she was fartin holes in the ground, and Jared laughing fit to be tied, until the two of them catch sight of me and stop, and just look at me standing there holding the rifle, until Jared says, What are you huntin, Dan? and I should say something like partridge or squirrel not to give myself away, but I can’t help it, I say, murderers.

  And Renz still hasn’t said anything; maybe he’s hoping I still don’t recognize him in that beard and long hair but I’m looking him right in the eye and pretty soon he knows I know who he is, and he says, You wouldn’t be callin ole Renz Allyn a murderer, would ye? And I say, I would call him a lot worse than just that. I would call him a lowdown shit-eating chicken-hearted killer. I have lost my temper something terrible and forgotten I’ve only got one bullet and not enough to kill Jared too, but I will kill with the bullet whichever one makes the first move and kill the other one with my bare hands. Now Renz blusters, Well, if you aim to kill me, you’d best do it right now. And he takes out a segar and strikes a sulphur match to it and stands there just smoking his segar cool as Christmas. But Jared Story is nervous and kind of walking backwards waiting for the right moment to turn and run. You Jared! I yell at him, just hold on. I don’t want him running off and being a witness that I shot Renz. But I can’t kill him too and he seems to know it. I aint murdered a soul, he says, What do you want to shoot me fer? And he keeps edging backwards. I up the rifle at him. He’s near the bend of the road. Stop, Jared, I say. But he bolts and ducks and runs. I fire. He falls. But hits the dirt and springs up and runs on. Renz still smoking his segar, hasn’t moved, says cool, You’ve missed him and lost him. Better load again, he says. Then he starts walking toward me. I don’t have anything to load with even if I had time. He grabs the rifle by the barrel and yanks it out of my hands and throws it into the road. Then he draws back his fist. But before he can swing I pop a jab into his jaw, another into his gut. He bends, staggers, straightens, lashes out and gets me on the ear. Then on the nose. I punch his body and his face, not aiming for any place, just slugging him wherever I can land. He blocks my fists and slugs back at me. I block some too and get in a good one on his face, a better one on his shoulder which spins him back. For a dirty killer no clean fight: I slam my knee into his crotch and grab him by his long hair and throw him into the road. Jared! he hollers, Come back and help me! I jump on him and stomp him, my feet and then my knees pounding into him.

  “Hey, dig the cat zapping that baddie!”

  “Shhh, don’t hassle him, man.”

  Now I…now I lay…now I lay me down on him and wrap my fingers around his neck and squeeze for all I’m worth. Oh, he purples and will choke and die. No struggle. My fingernails pierce his skin. Father, here he comes.

  Eph Parmenter raises my chin with his rifle barrel and says, Whoa, Dan, let up now, and Jared says, See, I told you he was killing him.

  Up, Dan, says Eph, or I’ll fire.

  “Down. Oh man, what a bummer!”

  17

  From Diana’s diary

  August 24

  Oh, I wish, I wish that when he had asked “Couldst thou nurture these thy brethren with any morsel from thy table?” I had answered in a lie, “I’m sorry but we barely have enough for ourselves,” or even given him some money and told him how to find the Cornwall Bridge general store. I want them here but I don’t want them here. I wish they would go away but I wish they would stay. I have asked them to leave, twice today I have asked them, but they haven’t, and maybe won’t. I can’t blame them for liking this place so much, but if they really intend to start a commune here then Day and I will have to leave or else we’ll have to revise our life styles to match theirs, and I don’t think Day could do that. I’m not even sure I could do it.

  They aren’t as dumb as they seem on the surface. The girls are, for the most part, mindless, giddy sex machines, although the one called Bathsheba is a Vassar drop-out, and the boy called Barnabas had a scholarship to M.I.T. and Zephaniah himself (I almost capitalized “Himself”) keeps bragging about having an I.Q. of 155. Most of them didn’t realize what Day was doing when I hypnotized him; I guess they thought that he was simply “freaking out” on all the pot he’d smoked. I didn’t say anything to them about reincarnation. I just told them that Day “believes” that he used to live here in Dudleytown back in the 1890’s under the name of Daniel Lyam Montross, and I filled them in on a little of Dan’s history. Some of them were too high on pot to really care or seem interested, but a few of them, including Zephaniah and Esaias (oh, I hate their phony names!) paid close attention.

  After I brought Day back from his trance, the girl called Vashti began to take a new interest in him. I guess she was impressed by his “freak-out” or felt that he needed to be comforted or guided through his bad “downer” or whatever. Anyway, she got pretty affectionate with him, and sometime during the middle of the night she crawled into his sleeping bag with him, and it looked to me as if he made love to her.

  The reason I know this is that I was awake at the time. Yes, all nine of us, after all the pot smoking, slept together, “together,” in our tent. It was still raining, after all; I couldn’t very well make them leave, even if I had wanted to. I guess I’m more susceptible to marijuana than I thought I was. I was surprised our tent was big enough for all nine of us. But it was rather crowded. “Crowded.”

  Day hasn’t confessed anything to me about what he did with Vashti (maybe he was too stoned to know what he was doing), but in a way I hope it’s true because then I wouldn’t feel so guilty myself. Because when Zephaniah crawled into my sleeping bag, I was past caring what he did. Maybe it was just the effect of the pot, but he was a terrific lovemaker, and I could understand why all these girls have attached themselves to him, although there was something rather dispassionate, even mechanical, about the way he did it.

  But now I’d like for them to leave, and it’s more complicated because Zephaniah knows that I enjoyed that. He said that they didn’t want to freeload and would just find some nuts and berries to eat, but I drove into Cornwall Bridge and loaded up on food and the other girls helped me cook supper. Tonight, though, since it has cleared up, I’m going to insist that they can’t sleep in the tent w
ith us.

  And I won’t make Day demonstrate Daniel for them again. In retrospect, I was just doing it to show off, to entertain them, and perhaps out of curiosity to see what effect the marijuana would have on “Daniel.” It was a disturbing experience for Day, I think. That business about “Daniel” remembering a conversation he had had with me, which couldn’t possibly have happened to the real Daniel, reawakened my suspicions about this whole matter of reincarnation and Day’s imagination. The fact that he “thought” that Zeph and Esaias were Ferrenzo Allyn and Jared Story, which was an obvious projection of his hostility toward the two boys, was all the more grounds for suspicion. I want to play that section back and have Day listen to it and confront him with these ideas, but he refuses. He seems to have been avoiding me all day, maybe because of his guilt. Would it make him feel better if I told him that he isn’t the only one who is guilty?

  Now he and Zephaniah are arguing because Day wants to listen to WQXR on the radio but Zeph wants to pick up a rock station. I will have to stop here and intervene.

  August 25

  They’re still here. Five pounds of pork chops for supper. You’ve got the money, Diana. But kid, you don’t want to marry them forever. I even had a little chat in private with Zeph this afternoon, trying to explain to him that Day’s and my “trip” (or “pilgrimage” to him) is a private thing and I wished they would at least go off and pitch their camp in one of the cellar holes or some other place, but Zeph just gave me a “sermon” about “the beatitude of togetherness” and how “glorious” we all are together; then he used the occasion of our being alone together to try to seduce me and I had to tell him that I didn’t want to get involved with him, but he just said “So who’s getting involved?” and tried all the harder to seduce me, and I gave in, because this morning Day and Vashti went off into the woods together; he said he wanted to show her how to identify edible mushrooms, but I’m sure that’s not all they were interested in. I think he has gotten over his aversions to these people even quicker than I did, but he absolutely loathes Zeph, and the feeling is mutual. Zeph keeps saying to him, “Get thee behind me, pharisee.”