Vernon’s great-great-aunt Drussie Ingledew, ninety-eight years old, is on her deathbed, but before she dies she tells Vernon how people used to cure ham back in the old days when there were still razorbacks at large, but Vernon refuses to share his secrets with us. He will not reveal the special time of year when he slaughters his hogs, nor will he reveal the arcane but humane method he uses to slaughter them. He smokes the meat for an amount of time that he will not reveal, using smoke from burning objects the composition of which is a closely guarded secret. Many spies try to learn his secrets, but they do not succeed.
“Ingledew Ham” is the best stuff in the history of ham-making. There is nothing else comparable; it practically melts in your mouth, and is much sweeter than ordinary ham. At first Vernon sells his total output to the supermarkets of Jasper and Harrison, but the demand for it keeps forcing the price up, until the local supermarkets cannot carry it, and it becomes a mail order item affordable only by the wealthy. Vernon’s five sisters, who are married to, respectively, a Whitter, a Chism, a Coe, a Plowright, and a Stapleton, help him raise and process his hams, as do their husbands; it becomes an increasingly large operation. Vernon branches off into smoked sausage, cased in cornhusks the old-fashioned way, and far superior to commercial sausage. Then he branches off into sugar-cured and smoked bacon; also spareribs and head cheese, letting nothing go to waste.
One day he takes his watch to Harrison to be repaired. The watch repairman examines it, declaring he’s never seen one like it. The repairman gently opens the case, and shakes his head; he says it will take him months, maybe years, to find replacements for the damaged parts and to put the watch back together. “Take your time,” Vernon assures him. He is only eighteen years old. (It’s really too bad about that watch. I had planned to tell Vernon what the next step was: he was to go away to college, to the University of Arkansas, where he would play football, becoming a “Razorback” himself, making the first string in his sophomore year, as a defensive end, and becoming the best defensive end in the history of the Razorbacks, making All-American in his senior year. That would have made a great sports story, which we could call simply Razorback, but the watch is broken and we cannot get to him to tell him about it. So he does not go to college. But he studies.)
On the same trip to Harrison to take his watch to be repaired, he discovers a store that sells a kind of book with soft covers called “paperback.” The paperback more than the razorback is a momentous discovery for Vernon. He buys a handful of paperbacks on astronomy, geology, genetics, anthropology, linguistics, and architecture, which he takes home and reads in his spare time when he is not supervising his swine industry. Periodically he returns to Harrison to see if his watch has been repaired, and finding that it hasn’t, he buys more paperbacks, on chemistry, geometry, zoology, history, philosophy, musicology and literature.
His sisters, and his father too, to a lesser extent, tease him about becoming a “bookworm.” The only other person in Stay More who reads books is his cousin Jelena. When Vernon finishes his paperbacks, he takes them to Jelena and trades them to her for her paperbacks on physics, biology, art history, theater, sociology and eschatology, which is a subject that interests him most because he is still trying to understand why his mother died. One day Jelena swaps him a book on sexology. He has not been exactly ignorant of the subject, for, after all, he has been personally responsible for breeding his razorback boar to many Poland China gilts and their offspring, the sight of which has given him many a throb. And yes, although he refuses to admit it, he has had sexual fantasies involving his cousin Jelena. When he swaps books with her, he is careful not to get too close to her, because she has a certain venereal scent or fragrance that drives him wild.
The next time he goes to swap books with her, he finds her alone, her children in school and her husband off somewhere for the day selling his chickens. She gives him a Coke, and asks him what he thought of the book on sexology. He admits it was “interesting.” She asks him if there is anything he doesn’t understand. He understands just about everything, he allows, but he doesn’t quite understand why it is that animals “mate” only at certain times whereas humans apparently do it all the time. “Sit down, Vernon,” she suggests, “and we’ll talk about it.” He sits down, careful not to sit too close to her. She says, “You’re nineteen. Are you still a virgin?” That isn’t any of her business, he tells her. “I’m just trying to find out if you know what sex feels like,” she says. I can imagine, he says. “Then you have a rich imagination,” she comments, and begins her mini-lecture: “If sex is pleasurable for all creatures, why is it that for animals it is confined only to the time of rutting or ‘heat’? Did you know, by the way, that compared with animals, it is more exceptional for women than for men to be able to indulge in sex at any time of the year?” Vernon admits that he had not thought of that. “It’s true,” she goes on, “and since it’s plain that the purpose of human sex is not for procreation but for pleasure, more often than not, then this pleasure, and the absence of it, and the strong emotions inspired by both the desire and the unfulfillment of the desire, are on one hand the source of art, literature, music, religion and science, and on the other hand greed, selfishness, malice, envy and war. We are different from animals because we have a mind, imagination and an ability to reason, and these attributes originate out of our longings and desires for sex. Does that make any sense to you?”
Vernon thinks it over and grants that it does. “But our sexuality also leads us into ‘civilization,’” Jelena points out, “and civilization imposes restrictions on our sexuality. Civilization creates the institution of marriage, and standards of ‘morality.’ Marriage is a trap. But I needn’t warn you of that, because you are never going to marry, are you?”
Vernon reaffirms the intention that he first declared to her on her wedding day. “Are you,” she asks, “like so many of your uncles and great-uncles and great-great-uncles, going to remain celibate all your life?” Vernon does not answer. “We’re alone, you know,” she points out. “Mark won’t be home until suppertime.” Vernon makes no response. “Don’t you want me, Vernon?” she asks, a trifle desperately. “Am I too old for you?” Vernon can bring himself neither to nod nor shake his head. Jelena stands up. “I’m going into the bedroom,” she announces, “and I’m going to take off all my clothes and lie down on the bed.” She leaves the room. Vernon just sits there. I wish he had on that wristwatch so that we could shout at him. But perhaps he does not need it; we see him finally rise, and walk slowly to Jelena’s bedroom, where he finds her reclining on the bed, smiling at him. It is the most beautiful sight he has ever seen, and he understands it. He understands that he must quickly get out of his clothes, and does. He understands that he must climb upon the bed and suspend himself above her, and does. She takes hold of him and guides him into her; the entrance entrances him; Vernon will remember that first entrance for the rest of his life: he cannot understand how anything could be so far beyond understanding as the feeling of her warm moist interior. He sighs aloud at the wonder of it, and so does she. And as soon as he has absorbed the wonder of it, they both begin moving their hips, urgently, as if, having discovered the wonder, they are eager to find how much of it can be found. Vernon does not last long; his quaking burst paralyzes him, but she holds him to her and will not let him go, whispering a question in his ear, “How did that feel?”
Vernon studies the heuristic inquiry, and replies, “It felt…it felt like I was being turned inside out.” She laughs, and says, “That’s beautiful,” and her laughter causes her body to shake, and the shaking of her body rearouses Vernon and he begins to move again, they both again, for a longer time this time, alternately fast and slow as if searching for the right tempo, and finding it, which causes Jelena to begin to tremble, slowly at first, then uncontrollably, violently, amazing Vernon, who is more amazed by the sound that comes deep from her throat, but he seeks to understand it, and understands it, and in the understanding of it reac
hes his own second crisis and explosion and release.
Then they lie side by side holding one another and breathing deeply, and Jelena teases, “See what you’ve been missing all these years.” He does, but has a worry: “What if you get pregnant?” “I can’t,” she replies. “When Monty was born, I requested that the doctor tie my tubes.” “Oh,” says Vernon, “then you can do it all the time?” “All the time,” she says, hugging him tighter.
The “affair” between Vernon and Jelena, for that is what it is, continues; it is a rare day that her husband Mark is gone from home all day long, but Jelena finds excuses to get out of the house, and she and Vernon begin meeting in the woods, where they remove their clothes and cavort like animals. One day she tells him that she wants to get a divorce from Mark and marry Vernon. Divorces are unheard of in Stay More; at least we have not heard of one yet. Vernon tells her again that he loves her but he reminds her of his declaration that he will never marry. She does not understand it, but she wishes that she could live with him all the time, and not have to go on meeting him clandestinely. If they keep that up long enough they will be discovered.
And sure enough, they are discovered: Luke Duckworth, Mark’s brother, hunting squirrel in the woods, happens to spot the couple, and reports it to Mark, who does not believe it, but confronts Jelena and says, “Somebody tole me they seen you and Vernon out in the woods together without your clothes on. Tell me it aint true.” She knows she can’t go on covering it up. “It’s true,” she says. He slaps her, knocking her to the floor, kicks her, then takes his rifle and goes to Vernon’s swine processing plant and points the rifle at Vernon and says, “If you even look at Jelena again, I’ll kill you.”
Soon everybody in Stay More (there are only twenty-one people this year) knows about the affair between Vernon and Jelena, and several of Vernon’s sisters remark to him that he ought to be ashamed of himself, and his father says to him, “You’re too old for me to cut off your tallywhacker, but I got a good mind to do it anyhow.” Vernon goes to Harrison to see if his watch has been repaired; it hasn’t, so he buys paperbacks on law, psychology, archaeology and an assortment of pornography, and secludes himself with his books, until he discovers one day that there is a boy his own age in Stay More, for the first time since he was born. The boy’s name is Day Whittacker and he is accompanied by a girl who does not give her name, but who may or may not be the wife of the boy, because she is several months pregnant. The boy, who like Vernon is nineteen years old, says that they have been wandering around exploring various ghost towns, and they like Stay More, even if it isn’t completely a ghost town, and they would like to use the old yellow house if nobody else wants it, but one of the upstairs bedrooms contains a glass showcase with the dead body of a very old man in it, and they can’t very well live in the same house with a dead body. Vernon explains to them the historical significance of the dead body, and tells them that if they really want to live in the yellow house he will ask his father if they can move the body to some other place. Then Vernon remembers that his father is angry with him because of his affair with Jelena, so he says to Day Whittacker, “On second thought, let’s you and me jist move it ourself. I’ll git my truck.” He gets his truck and with Day’s help they transport the showcase back to its original location, appropriately, in the abandoned Ingledew general store.
Day Whittacker and Vernon Ingledew become good friends; they have in common not only their age but also a boundless curiosity about nature. Day Whittacker is an expert in forestry, and knows everything about wood. I have partially examined the story of his visit to Stay More in another volume; his significance in the present volume is merely that he provides Vernon Ingledew with many hours of companionship, and for that matter will continue to be Vernon’s best buddy for the rest of their lives.
Now in particular he and his wife or girlfriend or whoever she is help to divert Vernon’s attention from Jelena. Vernon tells them all that he knows of the history of Stay More, and they tell him of their adventures and exploits exploring ghost towns in Connecticut, Vermont and North Carolina. They are “tracking” the old near-hermit Dan, who had lived in all those places, and who has died, or been killed, here in Stay More. Vernon takes an interest in the story of Dan, particularly Dan’s place in the history of Stay More.
Vernon is shown something that he had not noticed before, thinking it only wallpaper: the plaster walls of Dan’s bedroom are covered with writings, in pencil: aphorisms, epigrams, mottoes, observations on nature and on human nature, including references to various Ingledews. Vernon learns, for instance, something that neither he nor his father ever knew: that the reason his grandfather Bevis Ingledew never spoke to his grandmother Emelda was not that they were not on speaking terms but that they could communicate telepathically. Bevis and Emelda are both now dead. Vernon learns also that his great-uncle Tearle, who is not dead, knows several secrets about his great-grandfather John “Doomy” Ingledew. Vernon copies all of the writings on the walls into a leather-bound journal. He becomes obsessed with the history of Stay More, and even forgets about Jelena. He searches attics. In the attic of the double-doored house of Bevis and Emelda, now abandoned, he finds a box of dozens of photographs, taken early in this Century by Eli Willard, and showing just about everybody who lived in Stay More when its population was over four hundred. In the attic of the old hotel that had been built originally as Jacob Ingledew’s trigeminal house, Vernon finds the unfinished but nearly complete manuscript of The Memoirs of Former Arkansas Governor Jacob Ingledew. He also finds there, in a trunk containing women’s old clothing, concealed beneath the clothing, eighty-nine small journals, diaries, a daily record of the existence of the Woman Whom We Cannot Name from her fourteenth year until the day of her death. He breaks open a rusted safe in the back room of the abandoned general store and finds record books which reveal all of the activities of: (1) the store, (2) the post office and (3) the fraternal organization that was at first the Free and Accepted Masons and later The Grinning and Ogling Tipplers’ Union. It is all there; the chronicle of the birth and growth and decline of Stay More is complete. Our story is, to all intents and purposes, over.
But that gold chronometer wristwatch still has to be repaired. Once again Vernon returns to Harrison, and, after buying paperbacks on genealogy, cosmology, oriental philosophy, folklore, and my three previous novels, he timidly ventures into the watch repairman’s shop, and finds the watch repairman bent over the gold chronometer, delicately making adjustments. The watch repairman looks up and says, “Just a few more minutes, and I’m done with it. But I can’t let you have it. I’ll give you a thousand dollars for it.” Sorry, Vernon says. “Two thousand,” the watch repairman offers. It’s not for sale, Vernon tells him. “Three thousand, for God’s sake,” the watch repairman offers. It’s kind of a heirloom, Vernon points out, and has no price. “Four thousand? Five? Six? You name it,” says the watch repairman. Could I have my watch, please? Vernon requests. “Well, heck, just a minute,” the watch repairman says, and finishes his adjustments and closes the case.
The watch repairman will wind up the watch, and as he does so, time will change to the future tense. The watch repairman will say, “I will have to charge you three hundred and forty-seven dollars and fifty cents for parts and repairs.” Vernon will write him a check, then he will take the watch and go home. One day, he will show the watch to his friends, Day Whittacker and his wife or girlfriend or whoever she is. He will explain to them that if he puts on the watch he will become aware of us. Then he will put on the watch. “Howdy,” he will say to us. He will indicate the couple beside him and will ask us, “Is there anything you would like to say to them?”
“Just give them our regards,” I will reply. And Vernon will give them our regards, and his own, and go on home, where he will find Jelena waiting for him. At the sight of her, he will instantly close his eyes. She will ask, “Why are your eyes closed, Vernon?” He will reply, “Mark said he’d kill me if I ever laid eyes on
ye again.” “Are you afraid of him?” she will ask. “I don’t care to git shot,” he will declare, “but man to man without a gun I’m not afraid of him.” “Open your eyes, Vernon,” she will request, “I want to tell you something.” He will point out, “I don’t hear with my eyes.” “Open your eyes, Vernon, or I will go away,” she tells him. That will be what he will want her to do, and he will keep his eyes closed, and she will go away. “You numbskull,” I will tell him, after she is gone, “she wanted to inform you that her husband Mark has taken their two sons and moved to California.” “Oh,” he will say, and will run after her, but will not be able to find her. She will not be at her house, which has a “For Sale” sign on the front of it (but nobody will ever buy it). “Where is she?” he will ask us, and we could, if we would, tell him, but we must let him find her by himself. He will look all over Stay More, he will look all over this book, examining it page by page, picture by picture; he will call our attention, as if we would not know, to the architecture of the book itself: it will be architectural, and he will analyze the architecture of it, showing how the base is heavier, the upper part lighter, and how the roof is pitched, and we will be over the ridge, on the downslope of the roof. He will call our attention to something else that we will not have noticed: that there is a typographical error on page 393, a spelling error on page 144, a grammatical error on page 84 and a historical error on page 84. He will also demonstrate something else that we will not have been aware of: that the initials of the title of the book, The Architecture of the Arkansas Ozarks, form the acronym TAOTAO, which, he will explain, means “double Tao,” or bigeminal Tao, and for those of us who will not have known, he will point out that “Tao” means “the Way” or “the Path” and refers to a philosophy of life which may be cryptic or paradoxical but seeks to understand the basic order and creativity underlying all architecture and personality and life.
The Nearly Complete Works, Volume 1 Page 123
