A Far Piece to Canaan

by Sam Halpern

  I thought she was referring to size and became instantly flaccid. A few minutes later Cheryl remedied that malady and I declared my manhood. I was a novice but a fast learner. Of the now nine Jewish kids on campus, I was comforted by the belief that I was the only one getting laid. Then tragedy struck!

  I was dating Cheryl on Wednesday and Saturday nights. One Monday evening I had exciting news to impart. I raced to her little apartment with a bottle of cheap wine, quietly used the key she had given me, and entered. Sounds emanated from her bedroom. I was certain she was struggling with someone and burst through the bedroom door to rescue her, only to find Cheryl and my philosophy professor deeply involved in hedonist studies.

  I received an A in philosophy that semester.

  The good news I had been in such a rush to tell Cheryl concerned reviews on a paper I had worked on for an English professor. As a research assistant, I was studying the effect of Charles Dickens’ visit to the United States in 1842 on his future work as editor of the British newspaper, The Daily News. During that trip Dickens had become bitterly opposed to slavery and shifted the direction of the newspaper after he returned to England. That was well-known, but little had been written about the effect of the American trip on Dickens’ later work. My observations were not totally new, but offered my professor an exhaustive review of the topic. The academic accolades got him tenure and he wrote me a glowing recommendation for NYU’s graduate program. A few months later, I met Nora.

  I was jarred from my musing about Collingwirth when a man of about forty came out of the mansion that had replaced the Shackelford farmhouse and walked briskly toward me. I exited the car. Once he saw my age, he dropped his aggressive posture.

  “Can I help you?”

  I laughed. “Not unless you can tell me where Rosemary Shackelford lives.”

  It was obvious from the look he gave me that he found this a little strange. I quickly made an effort to remedy the problem. “I’m revisiting places I lived as a child, and the love of my juvenile life lived where your house now stands. The family name was Shackelford.”

  The man smiled. “Carry a torch a long while, don’t you?”

  We both laughed. I recognized his accent. “Have you lived here long enough to trade in your Red Sox tickets for field-level Cincinnati Reds?”

  The man shook his head. “I plan to have my ashes scattered in Fenway’s outfield. We’ve lived here three years and I don’t know any of my neighbors.” He smiled and started to turn away, then turned back toward me. “Sorry I can’t help you with Miss Shackelford, but I’m sure you’ll meet another girl soon. Have a nice day, sir,” and he walked toward his house.

  I backed out of the driveway thinking about Rosemary. I wondered if she was still alive. If she had children. If her life was happy with the man she had chosen. The words of my undergraduate psychology professor ran through my mind: “You never forget your first love.” Apparently, he was right.

  What was I going to do today? I had no idea, but then it didn’t make any difference. I was retired. An abandoned derelict floating on an irrelevant sea. I decided to go back to my hotel and spend the day soaking in the swimming pool.

  As I started driving, I looked to my left toward the ridge where our tobacco barn had set. I found myself upset by its absence and felt an urge to explore where it had stood. I parked at the fractured old gate, then walked to the top of the ridge and followed the creek toward the volcano hill. When I was abreast of “our house,” I began my search. The bluegrass was so tall that what I felt with my feet was as important as what I saw. I wandered in circles until I tripped over the remnants of a ventilator panel, one of many such planks that could “open the barn up” to the air. This would aid in curing the tobacco after it had been harvested. When rain threatened, of course, it could be closed. It was obvious to me where I stood. In 1946, I would have been standing in (or beside) the tobacco barn. I searched, but found no further remnants.

  The distance between the tobacco barn and the sheep barn was perhaps two hundred feet, and I walked toward the site. Halfway there I discovered part of a weathered, creosoted plank. The distance from both barns put it exactly in the neighborhood of the corncrib. Perhaps this piece of wood had witnessed an event that deeply affected my life on Berman’s. At the time I was having difficulty coming to grips with Rosemary Shackelford’s engagement. Indeed, I . . .

  . . . didn’t want to be around anybody but Ben. Every morning I’d take off across Cummings Hill to the Big Bend bottoms. Finally, I just left my fishing pole at his cabin. That ten-mile round trip was the only bad thing about visiting Ben. It was worth it, though. I could be lower than a snake’s belly and Ben would make me feel better. Third or fourth time I visited, he brought up the crazy man and about my talking to Dad. I told him I wudn’t up to it at the moment and it would have to wait until I was over my problems with women. He grinned and said I’d better not figure on waiting that long. I told him it shouldn’t take more than a couple weeks and he really laughed.

  We talked about all sorts of things, or sometimes just sat on the riverbank and fished in dead quiet. Man, did he know stuff. He talked a lot about his family . . . he was the youngest, same as me, and had the same kind of troubles with one of his sisters I had with Naomi. He’d even been in love with a girl Rosemary’s age when he was eleven, and the same thing happened to him that happened to me. Everything was going great until one day I asked where he got the clothes he had lent me. He got quiet, but it wudn’t like our usual quiet. When I left that evening I took my fishing pole.

  Truth was, I was getting lonesome for a friend my own age. That was a problem because I didn’t want to see Fred very often, and Lonnie didn’t come over. Mostly, I just took my slingshot and wandered the hills. I was a good shot, boy. I was better than Fred now, and a couple times in the past I let him know it by plunking a sparrow at forty, fifty feet. Fred never said anything, but he never took a shot unless he was sure he wouldn’t miss.

  You can learn a lot wandering hills if you already know some and Fred had taught me lots. I’d go down to the creek in the morning and study tracks. It was fun putting together what went on during the night. Like one day I found the tracks of a mama coon and some little coons that had come down for a drink. The babies wandered ahead, and suddenly there was a set of fox tracks moving on the other side of the creek. This went on until they come to a narrow spot and the fox made his play. There was mud tore up all over the place with lots of gray-red fur and just a little coon fur and some blood. I could see where the fox run off limping. He must have been a young fox to be dumb enough to tangle with a mama coon. Ain’t a fox in Kentucky can lick a mamma coon with babies.

  One day, I decided to follow Cuyper Creek. It was awful hot and when I got to a deep hole I shucked my clothes and went for a swim. When I got out, my clothes was gone. I was shook up because I thought maybe a goat got them. I couldn’t go hunting for them since I was naked as a jaybird. Then I heard somebody laugh and Lonnie stepped out of the bushes.

  “Lookin’ for these?” he asked, holding up my clothes.

  We had a good time swimming and squirrel hunting with our slingshots. I got a couple and then Lonnie asked me to their place. I was kind of scared, but figured he wouldn’t ask me if he was worried about his pa.

  We crossed Cuyper Creek and walked through the cornfields along the high bottoms. From where we crossed the creek it wudn’t far to the crazy man’s cave. That gave me the willies. After a while we come to a bluff. You could see a long stretch of river from there. The channel got wide, then the stream narrowed and deepened and started the Big Bend turn.

  Just below the bluff we were on was another cornfield, and below that, in a little hollow, was the Miller house. It was small and white with the grass clipped short in the yard and some pink roses climbing along a wood-rail fence. Mr. Miller wudn’t there, but everybody else was. The house was neat and had some real pretty furniture, most of it made out of walnut. One of the kitchen chairs was
sitting in the corner though and was kind of broke up. I wondered why it hadn’t been fixed because with five kids the Millers needed it. Turned out Mr. Miller made all the furniture and even built the house. I had dinner with them.

  Before the day was out, it got tiresome. Lonnie just didn’t say much. Finally, I told him I had to get the cows milked before Dad got in and took off, leaving the squirrels for him.

  When I got home, Naomi and Mom were standing by the cistern, and Mom said I had better get started doing chores because Fred had hurt his hand and Dad took him to the doctor.

  “Hurt his hand? How?”

  “He cut his finger off. He was acting meshuga with the corn sheller and cut his finger off,” said Mom, shaking her head. “Dad and Alfred took him to Dr. Culbert.”

  I felt awful. “Dad said that Culbert’s a quack and Fred’s gonna die!” I yelled.

  Then Mom and Naomi started talking to me together, telling me it was just a finger and you didn’t die from a cut-off finger.

  I did the chores but I couldn’t get Fred out of my mind. Why the heck had I gone on so about the rabbits? Fred and them needed the rabbits and I just gave them away. I could’ve told Fred that I didn’t want them and he ought take them because it was a sin to kill them and throw them in a ditch to rot. He might have taken them. But no, I had to give them away to people who didn’t need them. Boy, I was dumb.

  Dad got home as I was finishing milking and told us all about what the finger had looked like. That made me feel even worse. I wanted to go see Fred. Mom didn’t like the idea of my walking at night, but she didn’t want to upset me again so she let me go.

  I was really feeling low. Fred and me wudn’t best friends anymore but he had been my best friend. He taught me everything I knew about slingshots and frogging and fishing and reading signs. I hated them damn rabbits!

  The night was hot as I walked through the big field toward the hickory and locust thicket. The moon looked like a pumpkin, and swallows flitted in and out across the twilight sky. When I slipped through the barbwire gap, somebody come out of the kitchen door, saw me, climbed the hog lot gate, and ran my way. I could tell it was Thelma Jean by the milk-cow way she ran.

  “Fred cut his finger off!” she yelled, when she got close. “Fred cut his finger off!”

  “Yeah,” I said, and kept going.

  Thelma Jean walked along beside me, jabbering as she gasped for breath. “In th’ corn sheller! You know how hit gets jammed with cobs . . . all plugged up? Well, Fred always reaches and pulls ’em out and today they was this one wouldn’t come and he reached in further and hit cut his finger right off! Spurted blood all over th’ corncrib! Bled like a stuck hog! Finger just laid there a-twitching. You ain’t ever seed so much blood! Hurt somethin’ awful. Fred was a-squallin’ and runnin’ ’round with his finger stickin’ out and hit just a-pumpin’ blood all over th’ corn! Some places hit looked like Injun corn! You shoulda heard him squall! Old Radar heard him down in th’ holler, I betcha,” and she kept on and on.

  Poor Fred. It must’ve hurt terrible. He was always fiddling with that damn corn sheller. As we neared the house I kept going faster and faster and feeling worse and worse and by the time I got to the front door, I was nigh crying. Thelma Jean stood beside me while I knocked. Pretty soon, Annie Lee come to the door.

  “Hidey, Samuel. Well, Thelma Jean, what you knockin’ for? Whyn’t you just come in?”

  “I wudn’t knockin’. Old Sam there was a-knockin’,” and we both stared at her.

  “Who is hit, honey?” Mamie called.

  “Sam,” Thelma Jean yelled.

  “Samuel,” I said, and went inside.

  30

  Wudn’t any lamps in the front bedroom where I entered, but it was bright in the living room beyond, which made the bedroom half light. There, on the bed, in a bunch of covers, still wearing his Levi’s, was Fred. One of his feet was sticking out from under a quilt, its big toe wiggling.

  “Hidey, Samuel,” he said soft, waving his bandage-covered hand.

  “H . . . how you doin’, Fred?” I croaked, and went to the side of the bed.

  “Tolerable,” he said holding his hand in front of him and looking at the bandage. “Hurts like farr sometimes, but hit don’t hurt right now.”

  I didn’t know what to say so I just said, “Will you still be able to shoot a slingshot?”

  “Well, hun’ney, reckon I will. Ain’t gonna be th’ man I used t’ be, though,” and he kind of shook his head.

  “Maybe you can learn t’ shoot left-handed,” I said. “Yeah, that’s it, you can learn t’ shoot left-handed,” and I set down on the side of the bed.

  “Hun’ney, I’m right-handed,” then he cocked his head to one side like he often did and said, “You think I could learn t’ shoot left-handed?”

  “Hit ain’t likely,” said a voice behind me. It was Thelma Jean.

  “Will too!” I said, mad.

  Fred called out, “Mama, Thelma Jean’s a-botherin’ me.”

  “Thelma Jean, you git in here and close th’ curtain,” Mamie yelled.

  When they closed the curtain, most of the light was gone. Fred’s face was dark, but the light that was there shined on the whites of his eyes and I could see them good.

  “Think I could learn t’ shoot left-handed?”

  “I know you can,” I said. “Nothin’s ever kept you down. You’ll be a left-handed gun. Like Billy th’ Kid.”

  Fred set up in the bed. “Maybe I could. I’ve got some blood for hit. Uncle Charlie’s left-handed.”

  “See there,” I said.

  He thought about it for a while, and then asked what I’d been doing lately.

  “Not much . . . saw Lonnie today. Him and me went squirrel huntin’.”

  “Get any?”

  “Two.”

  “You did, or Lonnie?”

  “Me.”

  Fred thought a minute then said, “What else y’all do?”

  “Went down t’ his house.”

  The white in Fred’s eyes widened. “You did!”

  “Yep. Lonnie asked me and I did. Ate dinner there too.”

  “Wudn’t you scared?”

  “Yeah, a lot at first, but they were real nice. Mr. Miller wudn’t home.”

  “Huh. What else you been doin’?”

  “Fishin’ and stuff.”

  “Me too. ’Til today, when I cut my finger off. Not much fun in that.”

  Neither of us spoke for a while after that. We could hear people talking on the other side of the curtains but you couldn’t make out more than a word or two. I felt so bad about Fred. Dad and Ben were right and I was wrong as I could get. I was about to tell Fred what a fool I’d been when he swallowed and moved a little on the bed.

  “Samuel, I . . . I’ve done somethin’ real bad,” he said soft. “I . . . I . . . stole your rabbits. I feel awful about it. I’m just terrible. I ain’t no good. I’m just terrible . . .”

  There was a choking sound and I knew he was getting ready to cry and I couldn’t stand it. “It was nothin’,” I said quick.

  “Was too. When a body’s somebody’s best friend, he don’t steal his rabbits. I feel awful what I done. I have ever since I did it. I just ain’t no man at all.”

  The choking sound turned to squeezin’, and I felt worse and worse. I didn’t know what to say, so we just set, him cryin’ squeezin’ tears and me struck dumb as a board.

  “I don’t care about th’ damn rabbits,” I said hard. “I just want us t’ be best friends again. I ain’t been much of a man neither. I figured out you done it but didn’t have th’ nerve t’ say anything. I just walked around mad. That ain’t bein’ a man.”

  Fred snuffled and wiped his eyes. “Figured you knowed. You ain’t been the same ’round me since Thanksgivin’.”

  “I found your footprints along th’ fence th’ night after we saw blood on that trap.”

  “You went back that night!” he said quick. Then there come a look on his face
. “It snowed and drifted before mornin’. That’s why I didn’t see any sign of you.”

  “Yeah.”

  Fred sighed. “I’ll never do nothin’ like that again, Samuel. Maybe God’s punishing me for what I done. Can you give me a forgiveness?”

  “It wudn’t nothin’, Fred. It’s me that’s been lonesome and hateful and I feel awful. You got all my forgiveness. Let’s be best friends again.”

  “Shake,” he said, and stuck out his wrapped-up hand.

  I took his wrist and we shook and I felt peaceful for the first time in months.

  “Come on in here, Samuel,” Mamie called. “I ain’t seen you for a spell.”

  I rolled over to the other side of the bed and went into the living room. It was jammed with people. Mamie asked me about the family, then said, “What you think of that boy of mine cuttin’ his finger off?”

  “It was terrible!” I answered, and a flash of sick feeling shot through me again.

  “Hello, Samuel,” come from behind me.

  I turned around and Annie Lee was sitting on the bed beside WK. She had on a new red dress and high-heeled shoes and a red ribbon in her long black hair.

  WK scowled, then moved his big leg next to hers.

  Everybody talked for a couple of minutes, then I heard a noise on the stairs that led up from the front bedroom to the bedroom at the top of the stairs. There was a whisking sound as the curtains pushed to one side and Alfred walked through.