Where All Light Tends to Go

by David Joy

  “Jacob,” someone said, and I turned to find the reverend standing right behind me. He still had sweat beaded on his forehead, his hair parted slick in lines across, and was out of breath as he wiped his brow with a handkerchief and stuck it back into his pocket. “You remember me, don’t you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I was hoping I’d get a chance to talk with you.” He held a hand out to me and grabbed hold of mine before I could even reach out to shake. “How are you?”

  “I’m getting.”

  “Well, I heard what happened and was worried about you and your father. Almost drove out to see y’all yesterday, but didn’t know how you’d take it.”

  “I’d have taken it fine, Reverend, but I’m not living there anymore. Besides, you got more to worry with than us.”

  “Part of my job’s to be a shepherd, son, and you’re just as much a part of my flock now as you ever were. That’s a horrible thing, what happened. A horrible, horrible thing for a boy your age to see.” The reverend paused for a second and stared at me blankly while he thought. “You know the Bible tells us, ‘Thou wilt light our candle, the Lord our God will enlighten our darkness.’ You just have to let Him.”

  “Psalm eighteen.”

  “You know the verse?”

  “I ain’t been here in a long time, Reverend. I don’t have much use for church anymore. But you know good and well Mrs. Jones beat those verses into us.”

  “Well, have you accepted Jesus, Jacob? That’s the question. A man can know all the verses in the book, but it’s no good if you don’t know Jesus.”

  I could feel my brow scrunching, and I didn’t know what to say. I just stood there a few seconds puzzled. “I don’t know,” I stuttered.

  “Well, it’s a yes-or-no answer. Simple as that.”

  “Nothing’s simple, Reverend. Especially not something like that.” He went to speak, but I wouldn’t let him. I pulled the flowers from the vase that still sat on the pedestal: bright orange lilies, black-eyed Susans, the gaps filled white with baby’s breath. Long stems dripped water onto the floor. “I’ve got to get out of here. I’ve got work that needs done.” I didn’t even bother looking at him while I spoke. He wanted something I couldn’t give, and it wasn’t anything a trip to the lake, a quick dunk, and some words about washing sins could fix. I turned from him and headed for the door, those stems dripping a trail of water behind me, and didn’t look back at him or say another word.

  “Our darkest hour. In our darkest hour, Jacob,” the reverend hollered when I was almost out into the daylight, but I was finished listening.

  —

  A SHOVEL RESTED in the corner of a rickety toolshed that smelled of mown grass and gasoline. The shed tucked behind the sanctuary by the woods edge was where the church kept the push mower, weed-eater, and other tools needed for keeping up the property. A padlock rusted open had been all that secured the latch and held the shed closed, so it took no breaking to enter. I hadn’t asked anyone if I could borrow the shovel, but my reason was one that churchgoing folks would respect.

  It was the twenty-eighth of June that Sunday I carried Mama’s ashes to bury her. Folks were already piling into town, the highway filled with passing Florida tags, as part-timers came onto the mountain for the July Fourth celebration that next Saturday. Dog days held the sun high at four o’clock, and that heavy summer heat bore down and cast a fumy haze over the asphalt. Long, stringy clouds blew through the sky and cut sunlight as they passed, but the heat never flinched.

  The reverend had already gone home, and the church parking lot was empty. I’d waited in the pickup till he drove away, and though I was certain he saw me sitting there, he knew there was no sense trying to reach me. I was long past that and had been for as far back as I could remember.

  Hamburg Baptist sat on the side of Highway 107 right where the woods thinned and Lake Glenville came into view. Across the highway, the Hamburg cemetery rose up a steep hill where some-time back in the 1940s workers had spent weeks moving graves from down in the valley when the river was dammed and the water drowned the township. The lake had been built to fuel a power plant down the mountain that was used to turn out aluminum for airplanes during the last world war, but all that lake was good for anymore was pulling tubes loaded with children during the day and sinking carloads of bodies once night fell.

  The steep hillside tilted so sharply that gravediggers couldn’t dig so much straight down as at an angle that simply cut into the slope. The head of the grave was always a good three or four feet deeper than the foot. There wasn’t a flat piece of land on the whole plot, and so the flowers left on graves blew downhill and stacked in the ditch by the road.

  I crossed the highway and climbed the hill with the urn and flowers held to my chest with my bad hand and the shovel carried with the other. Mama’s family was buried at the top of the hill, a small patch of headstones that all read Franks. She’d been the last survivor from that line of Frankses, her mother, father, and baby brother all burning up in a house fire when she was nearly out of high school. Mama had never talked about it, but when I was younger and those types of questions mattered, I used to ask Daddy about her family. He said it was a lightning strike that lit the house up, burned it down before the first fire truck arrived, none of the family hitting downstairs before the smoke and flames consumed them. He said that Mama had been with him when it all happened, and even at a young age, I remember thinking that all that pain probably had something to do with how she turned out.

  I found the place where those three were buried, her father, Joseph, on the left, her mother, Cecilia, on the right, and a small headstone with a lamb on the top that stood between them. At the foot of that small grave I dug a hole about as big around as a milk jug a few feet deep, settled that urn down into the hole till it stood just so. I swiped the dirt I’d dug back into the hole, the red clay staining the rag that bandaged my hand, and watched as the last bit of brass disappeared beneath the soil. Digging a hole, burying something inside, and filling it in always left more dirt than had originally stood, a small red mound built up there now. I mashed it as flat as I could with my boots, but it would take a good rain to wash it smooth.

  I left the flowers above the hole I’d dug, between that oval of squashed red clay and the headstone with the lamb. There was a part of me that felt something needed to be said, but those kinds of words had never touched my breath. It was done and settled with me, though, and it felt good. There was nothing left for me there.

  I was almost down to the highway when I saw her, Maggie Jennings sitting with her legs crossed and swinging off the back of my tailgate. She had on a beautiful garden dress that showed off the tan of her legs. White fabric was striped with dark blue outlines of forget-me-nots, a silken strap wrapped around her waist, and blond curls bunched behind her head. Even from across the road, I could see the way afternoon sunlight glinted in her eyes, light still flickering when a wide smile creased those eyes damn near shut. I couldn’t smile back.

  I reached the pickup and propped the shovel against the bed by the rear tire. Standing in front of her, I felt those eyes of hers reach way back into me again, and I knew the hurt I carried was something that I hadn’t buried with the urn.

  “I wanted to be here for the service.”

  “It’s all right, Maggie.”

  “I don’t really know what to say.” Maggie reached out with both of her hands, and I grabbed them. She looked down when she felt the dressing on my hand. “Jesus, Jacob. What happened?”

  “Went through a window and got cut up.”

  “You need to take better care of yourself.”

  We stood there holding hands like we were about to dance, and when I looked into her eyes, I could see everything I ever wanted but couldn’t have. Knowing I couldn’t have it, knowing that everything I’d ever had I’d lost, brought on a sick feeling. I was alone in this world
, even with her there, and I was certain I’d cry.

  “Will you tell me something, Maggie?”

  “What, Jacob?”

  “What is it you see in me?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean what is someone like you doing here with a piece of shit like me?”

  Maggie pushed me away and held me at arm’s length. She looked at me with as serious a face as I’d ever seen. “You’re not a piece of shit, Jacob. You’re strong. Do you hear me?” She shook me. “You’re the strongest man I know.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “You are, Jacob. You really are.”

  “You can’t save me, Maggie.” I don’t even know where those words came from, but when I said them it suddenly felt like the world fell apart.

  “I’m not trying to save you, Jacob, and you’re right, I couldn’t even if I wanted to. All I’ve ever wanted is for you to try to save yourself.”

  I pulled her back into my chest and stared up into the sun when the tears came, and even though they were thick and heavy on my eyes, I wouldn’t let them fall. I didn’t want her to see how much I hurt. I didn’t want her to know that kind of pain. She nuzzled her head into my chest and pressed her cheek where my heart pounded. I lowered my head and dug my nose into her hair, a few tears falling from my eyes onto her curls. I squeezed her as hard as I could and she squeezed back, and we just stood there with that June sun beating down on us, both of us lost, but only her having somewhere to go.

  27.

  It wasn’t our first time together, nor had she been my first. In the years since that morning I woke up from my first wet dream, I’d been with my fair share of women. It was part of growing up in the house where I did. There had always been skeezies around willing to put out for a slack bag or a chance to get in good with my father. They never seemed to mind too much how young I was, seemed to take it as a challenge like they might teach me something. They looked at me how they might’ve looked at a cute little puppy or a baby, but I didn’t care. None of them had ever been all that pretty, nothing compared to Maggie, but those moods came on me like they do any man, and I never said no.

  I’d fucked a lot of women, but that night in the truck with Maggie was the first time I can honestly say I made love to one. The pile of clothes made the bench seat lumpy, but she didn’t seem to care about all of those clothes pushing into her back. In time, they worked flat. There was little room in the cab, and we banged against the console, our feet kicking at the door, and she knocked her head against the steering wheel as we slid over each other. I cradled the back of her head like I was holding an egg, my forearms pressing down over her shoulders as I pulled into her. She locked her legs tight around my back and her thighs dug into my ribs when she came, her whole body trembling in my arms, and I wasn’t long after.

  All of that steaminess fogged the windows, and Maggie wiped her hand across the passenger-side glass to look outside. Until those mountains came into view, the lights of houses on the hillside surrounding us like a pack of wolves, I was certain we’d traveled someplace else. I was certain that what we made in the cab of that pickup was another world, a place fit for living where I might want to stay for a while. Seeing those mountains in the distance and knowing that we’d never left brought back the uneasiness. I just wanted the window to fog again, let me go on believing for a minute or two longer. I didn’t need forever.

  28.

  A late-night rain had already fallen and passed, but left behind a thick fog that put all of the mountains in a cloud. Warning lights at the road’s edge, put out earlier in the day to slow traffic while the state evened a deep slope in the asphalt, still flashed. Each time the yellow lights flicked, the light hung on the fog, lit the whole world yellow for as far as I could see. I parked the pickup on the backside of the shop, right next to where Daddy kept the Nova concealed beneath a gray tarp.

  He had always kept somewhere around a hundred thousand dollars cash in the safe. That was how much he said it would take to start fresh should the need ever arise to run. “All the money in the world won’t do you any good in the bank when the law comes. They can freeze all of that shit,” Daddy’d said. “Cash, Jacob, it’s got to be cash if you’re going to run.” When I was a kid, he’d had to explain it to me for when the time came. Never knowing when that day might come, he kept one safe at the shop and a second at the house, both of them holding similar stacks of rubber-banded bills. He’d had to reinforce the floor at the house with six-by-six joists to support the weight of the safe, but the shop was built on a slab, the whole building floored with concrete.

  I still didn’t know where I was headed, but I was leaning toward following Maggie. The money in the safe was enough to give her what she’d need for those first few years of college, and still get me the fuck out of town. The idea of heading east with her to some sunny place like Wilmington sounded more and more like the best option I had. Maybe when the money ran low I might even do what she said and get a job working in a shop. But staying, staying was just a slow suicide, and if I were going to kill myself, I’d have done it quick and painless like Mama. One shot. Brains blown up the wall.

  Inside I hit the switch and the tube lights above flickered and buzzed till they glowed bright white. Two of the bays were empty, but on the far lift a long, low Cadillac floated in the air with tires drooping beneath uncompressed springs. I don’t remember ever being in there when it was so quiet before. Everything I did seemed to echo: my footsteps, boot soles scratching against scattered Oil-Dri, blue jeans brushing together, my breathing, my heartbeat. All of those sounds seemed loud, and I was spooked.

  Sweat beaded as fast as I could wipe it away, especially on my palms. I’d found a tube of Super Glue in my truck, unwrapped the shoddy bandage from my injured hand that Daddy put through the glass, and used the glue to seal my skin together. But if my hands kept sweating, there was no telling how long those hillbilly stitches would hold. I kept wiping my palms down my pants to try and keep them dry but it didn’t help. My eyes were wide and itchy, and I looked my hands over, not so much trembling, but certainly not still. If he caught me, he’d kill me. Whether it was in the act or whether I was headed for the county line, if he caught me, I was dead. I knew that more than I knew anything else in my life. So I moved quickly.

  The door to the office was paper thin, one of those cheap doors like might’ve been used to close off a closet or washroom. Only a turn lock on the doorknob kept the door sealed. I pulled the old Case Stockman I’d carried since I was a kid from my pocket and opened the blued clip blade, carbon steel stained into a dark patina. The door was loose, and the thin blade slid into the crack and popped the latch without a hitch.

  The lights were off in the office, and a bright orange glowed from the on-switch of the coffeemaker. The acrid smell of burnt coffee mixed with settled cigarette smoke. I flipped the lights. Daddy’s leather desk chair rested in the middle of the room. Stacks of paperwork had been shuffled square and set just so on the desk. The safe stood in the far corner, a shiny green finish scrolled with gold leaf and lettering.

  I remembered the day the deliverymen had wheeled that safe off the truck and into Daddy’s office. He hadn’t had a legitimate business for long at that point, and back then he did most of the work himself. It was the summer after Papaw died, and I was still too young to stay at the house by myself. With school out for the summer, I spent most days playing around the shop and watch-ing my father cuss like mad when something didn’t go just right. Daddy’d called me into the office that afternoon when the safe was brought in. He’d shown me the velvet-lined interior, the heavy steel bars, and the large chrome dial. “Going to use the day your Papaw died for the combination,” he’d said. “That way it’ll be something I won’t forget.”

  Almost ten years since, I still remembered that cold day when Papaw choked on his blood just two weeks before Christmas, December eleventh, 19 and 99. Those firs
t two numbers being so close made spinning the dial just right about as simple as taking apart a master cylinder. 12, 11, 19, 99. Repeat. 12, 11, 19, 99. Repeat. Every time I finished and cranked on the five-spoke handle, there wasn’t a bit of give. Left four times, right three times, left two times, right one. Repeat. 12, 11, 19, 99. Repeat.

  I was getting agitated. My hands sweated and that dial became more and more slippery each time I turned. I took a break from the safe, plopped down in that big rolling chair of Daddy’s, and tried to calm my nerves. A thin metal ashtray on the desk was piled with mashed-out cigarette butts, but in one of the divots along the rim rested a smoke that hadn’t been more than lit before it was placed there and burnt out. The Bugler was in the truck, but I wanted a real cigarette. I hadn’t had one in days. I picked that cigarette up, put it to my lips, tore a match from a pack that lay by the ashtray, and struck it aflame. I puffed on the Winston to settle my nerves, and when my hands quit shaking, I focused back into the dial.

  Left four times, right three times, left two times, right one. 12, 11, 19, 99. Repeat. It took two goes that second time around, but the wheel pack lined up and when I turned the five-spoke handle, the four lock bars rolled back loudly, and the heavy door eased open. I expected to see the long guns, maybe a pistol or two on the top shelf, and those stacks of banded bills layered like bricks on the second shelf. What I saw, though, was the sheen of black velvet, not a single thing inside except a yellow sheet of paper in the bottom.

  I knelt on the floor and grabbed the slip of paper from the bottom of the safe. It was an invoice printed on stationery from the Law Offices of Irving L. Queen III. My eyes ran down the list of fees: legal counsel, a payment to the crematorium, $52.34 to In Bloom Flower Shop, $300 to Hamburg Baptist Church. The bill totaled $2,064.72, with the largest chunk going to counsel. In the center of the page, a big red block with ink barely holding in the bottom right corner stamped PAID on the invoice. My hand shook and that thin carbon paper rattled like a dried leaf.