Big Cherry Holler

by Adriana Trigiani

Nellie hauled the oil painting of Big Stone Gap’s most famous resident, John Fox, Jr., the author of The Trail of the Lonesome Pine, over here from the museum. Fleeta thinks Nellie has a crush on him, even though he’s been dead since 1940-something. “Whenever she throws a shindig, she drags his mug out,” Fleeta complains. Mr. Fox’s oil portrait is eerily perfect for Halloween: he sits in profile in a dark wood study; on his long, pointed nose sits a pair of granny glasses. Come to think of it, he looks like a male Whistler’s Mother. Nellie has draped fake white cobwebs on him. He fits right in.

  Local merchants and the PTA provide the booths. Nellie is raffling off six free car washes (with wax) at Gilliam’s Car Wash and a month of free dry cleaning at the Magic Mart. The money raised will go toward new streetlights in town (Nellie wants the old-fashioned-lantern look). There’s a cakewalk and a costume pageant. Etta is not particular about her costume. Every year she goes as a skeleton, wearing a black jumpsuit with silver bones and a skull mask. She loves games of chance; she has spent the better part of the evening shooting at ducks on a spinning wheel.

  Etta runs up to me with a glossy caramel apple covered in orange sprinkles. “Mama, will you put this in your purse for later? We need to cut it.”

  “This is the biggest apple I’ve ever seen,” I tell my daughter. She hands me two pretty china saucers she won in the penny toss. When I ask her where the matching teacups are, she says, “I missed.”

  Etta’s pals—Tammy Pleasant, a tiny, wiry blonde in constant motion, and Tara Kilgore, a tall, serious brunette with heavy-lidded brown eyes—grab her.

  “You got to come now, Etta.” Tammy tugs on her.

  “They got a man that bleeds actual red blood in the Spookhouse,” Tara says flatly. “I wasn’t skeered.”

  “I was!” Tammy says, her eyes widening. The girls run to get in line at the Spookhouse. I know all about the Spookhouse because I spent the better part of this morning peeling grapes for the bowl of eyeballs the kids feel on their way in. Nellie convinced Otto and Worley to play monsters: Otto lies in a casket with blue goo on his face while Worley chases the kids through the locker area with a plastic ax strapped to his head.

  “Yoo-hoo, Ave!” Iva Lou hollers. She is selling used library books in a booth decorated like a study in a historical home, and is dressed in a sexy turquoise hoop skirt and a frilly peasant blouse that exposes her creamy bare shoulders. Her cleavage forms a clean line like an exclamation point. “Is this a good idea or what?”

  “The blouse or the booth?”

  “The booth, silly. I’m unloading all our old stuff, making way for the new. What do you think?” Iva Lou spins like a plate on a stick.

  “What a deal!” I hold up four Lee Smith paperbacks tied with string, priced at two dollars even.

  “Hold off. In another hour, I’m doing a flood sale: everything must go.”

  Iva Lou leaves the booth to James Varner, who looks much taller in real life than he does behind the wheel of the Bookmobile. Iva Lou still turns every head in the room. (There are some women who never lose their allure.) Lyle Makin stands off with a group of his buddies. He nods and smiles at us.

  “How’s your husband?” I ask Iva Lou as I wave to him.

  “Well, he ain’t been soused this month. Of course, no full moon yet.”

  “What does that have to do with it?”

  “He gets drunk almost exactly with the tides of the moon. It’s the strangest thing. He can go dry for weeks, and then boom, he goes on a four-day bender. There’s no getting around it, either. I can hide the stuff; I can try to divert his attention; I can fuss, but nothing works. When he wants to drink, he’ll find a way to drink, and that’s that. So I learned to live with it. He’s good for weeks on a stretch; and you know, that’s more than most women git.” Iva Lou unwraps a chocolate marshmallow witch and takes a bite. “How are you doing?”

  “We’re okay. Better than okay. Jack is fine.”

  “It’s a big damn deal when a man is out of work.”

  “I know.”

  “They are their jobs. You have to be careful. He’s vulnerable right now.”

  “To what?”

  “To getting sick. Taking to the beer. Running around. You know.”

  “My husband?” Iva Lou has got to be kidding.

  “He’s a man, ain’t he? He’s forty and change. Jack Mac’s hittin’ that mortality wall.”

  “Aren’t we all?”

  “Women are different. Men ain’t got markers to show them that they’re getting older. Not like us. Mother Nature takes us women by the hand and leads us into it slowly. You got your monthly to tell you that you went from girl to young woman; childbirth to let you know you’re in the middle; and then the Change to tell you that soon it’ll all be over. What have men got, really? Losing their hair? Losing a job? A pot gut? What?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You got to git a man to talk. It ain’t easy to git a man to talk about his feelings. They’d rather not have them at all. It’s our job to draw ’em out.”

  “Ivy Loo-ee?” Lyle hollers from the Coin Toss.

  “Lyle’s hungry.”

  “You can tell what he wants from the sound of his voice?”

  “I’d know that call of the wild anywheres. I don’t even need him to use words. I can tell by a grunt.” Iva Lou gives me a quick hug and goes to the Coin Toss.

  Jack is shooting ducks outside the Spookhouse. As I make my way across the crowded gym, I think about how a good woman can suss out her husband’s needs. Or how a good man can do that for his wife. Sometimes Jack reads my mind. But do I read his? Does he know how I feel about him? Is he still attracted to me the way I’m attracted to him? My husband has a great body. Really. He has broad shoulders and strong arms. His legs are thick and muscular from years of lifting, chopping wood, mining. And though I hate guns, there is something sexy about him as he stands with a rifle cocked. He sort of reminds me of John Wayne in Stagecoach. (Jim Roy Honeycutt just ran the print at the Trail. Black-and-white movies are always better on the big screen.)

  The crowd shifts a little, obscuring my husband. Before I can get to him, Leah Grimes stops me. I hardly recognize her. She’s lost weight (must be prewedding jitters), her hair is dyed a magnificent red, and the cut is pure Dottie West, a neat chin-length bob with feathering.

  “Leah, you look so pretty.”

  “Love done it to me.”

  “Congratulations on your engagement. Worley is a fine man.”

  “I know.” Leah blushes. I look over her shoulder and see my husband putting the toy rifle down on the shelf of the duck booth. A woman I have never seen before touches him on the shoulder; he turns around and grins at her.

  “Are you having a church wedding?” I ask Leah while repositioning myself to get a better look at the woman talking to my husband.

  “Nope. We’re gonna elope. Perty soon, too. Soon as Worley gets the pipes done at the Mutual’s.”

  “How are things at the house?” I ask Leah. Jack is laughing with the woman.

  “Good. Good. I want you to know if you ever need me to do anything fer ye, I’d like that. Baby-sit for Etta. Sew fer ye. Whatever you need.”

  “Thank you, Leah. But you’re gonna have your hands full with a new husband directly.”

  Leah smiles and nods. Her friends join her, and they go off to the crafts booth. Instead of following them to check out the apple butter, or going to Jack and introducing myself to the strange woman, I go up the stairs to the balcony. I circle around the upper level so I can watch them without either of them seeing me. I feel guilty doing this (slightly). I sit down behind a family dressed as sunflowers, munching on popcorn balls. They ignore me and watch the people below. As I slide down in the seat, I can see Jack Mac and the woman perfectly.

  From overhead, she looks like the Athletic Type. She is small and fit. Even though it is late October, she still has the bronzey glow of a summer tan. I thank God for the Art of Chinese Face-Reading and the bright f
luorescent gym lighting, which helps me to get a good look at her. She is definitely attractive. She has deep-set brown eyes (a secretive nature, great) which flash in a way that shows a sense of humor and a certain intelligence. She has a long, angular face and a large head (means she’s not hurting for money). Her short blond hair is sprayed into a casual bob, with spiky bangs. (She looks about forty, but maybe that’s just the sun damage.) She is neatly dressed; even her trim, faded jeans are pressed. The collar on her pale pink blouse is turned up, as are the sleeves. The top three buttons are open, revealing a freckled chest and a high, small bust. (I quickly unfasten the second button on my denim shirt and sit up straight.)

  She says something; my husband throws his head back and laughs. She holds a set of used books to her chest (good, I’ll ask Iva Lou about her) and gazes all around, giving him an opportunity to take a good look at her. Isn’t she a little old to be playing the coquette? It doesn’t matter. My husband is enjoying this! She sways back and forth, restlessly shifting her weight from foot to foot as she chatters. She is doing most of the talking (of course she is, I’m not married to a conversationalist), then she leans in and whispers in my husband’s ear. As her lips near his earlobe, I feel a stab of jealousy in my gut. Part of me wants to jump up on the balcony wall, latch on to one of the bedsheet ghosts, swing down onto the floor, and knock her over like a bowling pin. But I am his wife, so I would prefer to knock him over first and take care of her later. However, I do nothing. I sit here frozen.

  Why is he still talking to her? What does he see in her? I have my answer. She laughs a final time and pats the small of his back. (That’s a little low on a married man’s body to pat, in my opinion.) She turns and walks away. My husband watches her as she goes. She rolls off the balls of her feet and up onto her toes to give her hips just the right swivel. Jack Mac doesn’t miss one movement. I am officially sick to my stomach. Then, as if his conscience has bitten him on the ass for eyeing hers, he turns his attention innocently to the shooters at the spinning duck booth.

  The popcorn-ball eaters have left. I lean forward and drape myself over the back of the seat in front of me as though I have been shot and left for dead. (I don’t consider this too dramatic in light of all Iva Lou just told me!) Suddenly, as if marital radar alarms have gone off, Jack Mac feels my presence overhead and looks up at me. He smiles sheepishly. Well, maybe it’s not sheepish; I don’t know what it is, but whatever it is, I haven’t seen that smile on his face in a long, long time. It’s the kind of smile he gave me on Apple Butter Night, the night he first proposed to me. I lean back in my seat and exhale a long, deep breath toward the ceiling. (I must have been holding my breath the entire time!) The big black spider swings overhead, its crooked legs caught in the ropy web.

  I’d rather die than let my husband think I saw him flirting with the Blond Mystery Woman, so I wave to him from my perch and survey the gym floor as though I’m looking for someone. He looks up at me, confused. I want to stand up and scream, in front of the entire Halloween Carnival, “Yes! Yes! Yes! I’m spying on you!” Instead I smile and give a thumbs-up to the decorations. Spec joins him. Jack points up to me. Spec motions for me as he taps the red emergency cross on his orange vest. As I run downstairs to join them on the floor, I’m hoping the kids didn’t have an accident in the Spookhouse; the tile floor in there can get slick.

  “We got a call up in Wampler Holler. Let’s go.”

  “What happened?”

  “Not sure. Police radioed me,” Spec tells me, handing me my gear.

  “Honey, look after Etta,” I tell Jack, and go with Spec. I look back as we leave. God, he looks good to me all of a sudden in his white cotton shirt and his oldest jeans. (Are all men better-looking when other women want them?)

  Spec takes a road up to the holler that I’ve never been on before.

  “So what’s going on?”

  “We’re cuttin’ through Don Wax’s farm, goin’ to the old Mullins homestead.”

  Most of the Mullins family (no relation to Fleeta) has moved out of our area; some to Kingsport, others north to “O-high” (I don’t know what the industry is in Ohio, but lots of our folks have gone north to whatever awaits them there). All that’s left of the Mullins family is its matriarch, Naomi, who still lives in Wampler Holler. I love this holler; it cuts into the mountain in the highest point in the cliffs, and it has a great view of East Stone Gap and the dairy farms that make up this side of Powell Valley. As Spec speeds along the ridge, I figure it’s a real emergency—Naomi must be close to ninety years old. She still comes to town to trade on the first of every month; her face has not a wrinkle, and her hair is still coal black—must be that Cherokee blood.

  “Is Naomi all right?”

  “I ain’t got no details, Ave, so don’t ask me. The Fraley boy from the next house over was gittin’ some firewood out of her barn and saw something and called it in.”

  “Fine, Mr. Testy.”

  Spec smiles and keeps his eyes on the road. It’s just like old times, with Spec’s complaining and my prying. As we approach the Mullins log cabin (which has since sprouted extra rooms and been covered in aluminum siding), we are stopped by burly Tozz Ball, a deputy in the Big Stone police department. He directs us to pull into the clearing next to the neighbors, take our gear, and approach on foot. Spec and I make our way on a small footpath that leads to Naomi’s front porch. I see a group of men, most from neighboring Norton’s rescue squad, looking in the windows on the side of the log-cabin portion of the house. Spec and I join them. One of the men turns to us and motions us to be quiet.

  “Lordy mercy,” Spec says as he looks into the window. (He’s tall enough to see over all the heads.)

  “What is it?”

  “You ain’t gonna believe it.” Spec pushes me to the front of the group so I can see in the window. There in the living room is Naomi, in a long pale green flannel nightgown, standing completely still and staring into the eyes of a six-point buck. The buck seems twice as big as any horse I’ve ever seen, and he doesn’t seem agitated, he just looks deeply into Naomi’s eyes. Naomi does not move; she stares the buck down.

  “It’s been pert’ near an hour we been waitin’. But the buck ain’t flinched, and neither has Naomi,” a man holding a stun gun tells me.

  “What are you gonna do?” I whisper back.

  “I got ten bucks on Naomi,” he whispers back.

  “Boys, we’d better make a move,” Spec warns the group. But no one can make a move; we’re in that strange place where awe and fear intersect, and it has paralyzed us.

  Naomi takes a step back without breaking her stare. As she shifts, the deer cocks his head. We hold our breath outside the window. Naomi holds up her finger.

  “I’m a-gonna go, Ben,” she says to the buck. “Now, you go when I go. Go on. Git.” Naomi disappears down a hallway and we hear a door close.

  “Who the hell is Ben?” Tozz whispers.

  Then the six-point buck rears up. For a second, it looks as though he, like Naomi, may back out the open front door. Instead, in a panic, he charges the bay window at the far side of the living room and jumps through the window, tearing away the wood frame with his antlers. We hear a small yelp from deep within him as he breaks through the glass, which shatters onto the wood floor like crushed ice. In what seems like a long time but is only a few seconds, Tozz leads the charge around the side of the house to the front, to see where the buck went. As we get to the front porch steps, we see his silvery-brown rump as he leaps majestically back into the dark woods.

  Spec and I run into the house to Naomi. The bay window is destroyed. The simple voile sheers are torn where the buck’s antlers caught; there is fresh blood on the sash, where the glass pierced his underside. This makes my stomach turn. Spec opens the door to the bedroom for me.

  “Naomi, honey, are you all right?” I ask her.

  She sits on the edge of her bed in a state of calm with her hands folded neatly on her lap.

  “Naomi?�
�

  “Check her breathin’,” Spec barks.

  “What happened?”

  “Oh, Ava Marie,” Naomi says and sighs. Naomi’s pale skin has a pink sheen to it; there is a little dew on her forehead (from the standoff, no doubt). Her long hair, which I have never seen outside a braided bun, is loose and hanging around her shoulders in shiny ropes. Her bedroom is small, with a bed with a red and white Irish chain quilt, a small lamp, and a table. She looks like a doll in a simple cradle as she sits. “He come to me. I dreamt it, and he done come.”

  “Who?”

  “Ben.”

  “Ben?”

  “My husband, Ben. Ye know.”

  “Naomi, we always called your husband Mule. Mule Mullins.”

  “His Christian name was Ben.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Benjamin Ezra Mullins. That was his name in full. I had a dream a while back where he was a buck and I was a doe and we was talkin’ to each other like we was human.” I make Naomi cough three times as I listen to her heart. “I been restless, thinkin’ about him here lately. And I prayed that I could talk to him dye-rectly as I was feelin’ his presence here. I been thinkin’ ’bout selling this farm, and I couldn’t decide on nothin’ on my own, so I called on Jesus and then, o’ course, my Ben.”

  “How did the buck, I mean Ben, get into the house?”

  “He just walked right in. I had left the door open for air.”

  “How do you know it was him?”

  “The eyes.” Naomi smiles.

  “What did he tell you?”

  “To stay.”

  “Well, if that was his message, he tore up the window in the living room pretty good.”

  Naomi chuckles. “He never did want me to put that window in. He said we got enough light with the front windows. But I wanted me some big windows, so that I could put me some purty curtains up, like I saw in the movies. I always wanted me some big windows where the breeze comes through and moves them curtains around like fancy skirts.”

  “Honey, it doesn’t seem like there’s anything wrong with you. Your heart is beating normal, your blood pressure is good …”