A Far Piece to Canaan

by Sam Halpern

  Getting into the next field looked like it was going to be a problem since I didn’t have any gloves and you got to use your hands to climb a fence. Then I remembered that the fence had a hole in it down by the pond. Soon I was in the field that led to the Mulligans’ gate.

  The wind began picking up making the cold worse. Then the wail come again and I tore out running. By the time I got to the house I was chilled to the bone and scared to death. I pounded on the door and yelled, “Fred . . . Fred!”

  “Hello, Samuel,” Fred said soft-like when he come to the door. His face was all lit up and his eyes was strange like they seen an angel. Then I realized what was happening. Annie Lee was having her baby.

  47

  Hit started ’bout four this mornin’,” said Fred. “We called Bea and she come over and said hit was too early, but she come back ’round noon and been here ever since.”

  “C . . . can I c . . . come in?” I asked.

  “Old Bea’s been upstairs with her most of th’ time. She says hits goin’ slow but that hits like that, though, th’ first time. I heard her tell mama hit was gonna be all right.”

  “C . . . can . . . I come in?” I asked again, shuddering.

  Fred just stood there, his eyes glowing like they had wind and fire in them, and his denim shirt moving in and out fast as he breathed. Then he realized what I asked. “Come on in, hun’ney. Hit’s gonna be a great night,” and he threw his arm around my shoulder.

  Mamie and Thelma Jean were in the living room, Mamie wearing one of Mom’s sweaters and sitting in her rocker and Thelma Jean on the no-back in her Purina dress. Fred and me warmed ourselves, then Fred said, “Whyn’t you go up and see how she’s a-doin’, Mama?”

  “You just keep calm, Fred Cody,” Mamie answered with a little laugh. “Reckon I know more ’bout this sorta thing than you do. You just have a seat on th’ bed.”

  Fred was fidgeting around the stove, his whole body moving. “You ain’t checked in a long while,” he said as the two of us went over and set on the bed.

  “Fred, he don’t know nothin’ about babies and things,” said Thelma Jean. “Him and Sam, they ought be run off. Hit’s not right, old boys . . .”

  “You shut your mouth!” snapped Mamie.

  Thelma Jean kind of shriveled up, then she grabbed an old blanket and run to a corner and huddled under it until you couldn’t see any of her.

  Outside, the wind was getting loud and the snow was drifting. The temperature was dropping too, because when I went to the window to look out, the pane was so cold I could hardly put my fingers near it. Between gusts of blowing snow you could see more snow falling.

  Inside, the coal oil lamps cast long shadows against the walls. Fred and I had flopped down on the bed and it was nice listening to the crackling of the fire, the squeak of Mamie’s rocker, and the howling wind.

  Pretty soon there were footfalls on the stairs. Fred was up like a shot but a quick look from Mamie froze him. She got out of her rocker real slow, then went into the next room where the stairs come down. From the bed, Fred and me could see Mamie and Bea through a crack in the curtain and hear fairly well, especially Bea, who talked loud. Alfred used to say you could hear Bea whisper five hundred yards off, which wudn’t true, but it was close. Mamie’s words faded in and out and sometimes you had to guess what she was saying from what Bea answered.

  “What’s . . . on Bea . . . heard . . . and she . . . nothing?”

  “Lordy yes, them pains can’t get no harder.”

  “She ain’t . . . sound . . . not . . .”

  “Never seen nothin’ like hit. When they come she bites down on that old broom handle. She’s chewed hit t’ pieces. Plumb through in one spot.”

  “Hard . . . I mean . . . harder’n . . . other . . . been at?”

  “Mamie, hit’s th’ hardest I ever seen. She didn’t want me t’ say, didn’t want t’ scare y’all, but I got t’ thinkin’ upstairs I had t’ say somethin’ ’cause hit wudn’t right, you her mama ’n’ all. Hit just wudn’t right a-sayin’ nothin’.”

  “What’s wrong?” And this time we heard Mamie good.

  Fred started to get up, and Mamie saw him through the crack in the curtains. “Fred Cody, you stay there!” she called, and he did, but just barely.

  Mamie and Bea tried to talk lower after that, but their voices come through real clear. “I don’t rightly know,” Bea went on. “Maybe hit’s butt first, or somethin’. We ought get a doc . . . now I know how y’all feel about doctors, but maybe one could help.”

  I saw Fred’s eyes widen and I knew he wudn’t staying on the bed much longer.

  “Culbert couldn’t make it even if she’d let him see her,” Mamie said loud. “Th’ road’s drifted. I don’t think he’d come even if he could. We owe him lots of money and can’t pay a copper. You can bring hit up t’ her, though. I’ll walk there if she wants. I swear t’ God, I’ll . . .”

  “That’s not all why I come down, Mamie. They’s something else. You ain’t goin’ t’ like this, and I don’t understand hit neither, but she wants t’ see Fred.”

  Fred bounced off the bed and busted through the curtains. I saw him leap for the stair rail and Mamie’s hand grab his arm and spin him around before the curtains fell back.

  “Fred Cody, you ain’t a-goin’ up there! You get back inside!”

  “I’m gonna see Annie Lee,” he said.

  All the time I had known Fred his voice never sounded like that. I knew that he was gonna see Annie Lee and wudn’t nothing going to stop him.

  “You get back on that bed, Fred! You hear me?”

  “I’m gonna see Annie Lee,” he said. “Let go my arm, Mama.”

  “Fred, there ain’t nothin’ for you t’ do up there. You just a boy, son. You’re a good boy, and you’re gonna be a good man, but you just a boy now and there ain’t nothin’ you can do. Wouldn’t be nothin’ you could do if you was a growed man, less’n you was a doctor.”

  There wudn’t any answer. I could hear a struggle and now and then see a flash of movement. Mamie was trying to stop Fred and he was wrestling her out of the way. From the sound I could tell things was about even, since Fred was giving it all he had while Mamie wudn’t.

  “No, Fred . . . baby, stop now . . . Freddie . . . Bea . . . hep me . . . Bea!”

  “I can’t, Mamie. I don’t know what’s right. She wants him up there. I just don’t know what’s right. I can’t help. I got t’ leave hit between you two . . . in God’s hands.”

  The struggling got louder and something was knocked over. Mamie kept saying, “Naw, Fred! Naw, hit ain’t right!” Then all of a sudden there was this shriek.

  “Fred!”

  It was Annie Lee. The struggle stopped and I heard Fred race up the steps with Bea and Mamie right behind him. I jumped up and ran to the curtains. All four voices were talking at once, but the one that came over clearest was Annie Lee’s.

  “All y’all get out ’cept Fred! I’ll be, okay. I wanta talk t’ Fred alone! G’won!”

  Footsteps come down the stairs one at a time sounding like they would quit if Annie Lee didn’t keep telling them to leave. They stopped at the bottom and I guess Annie Lee could tell.

  “G’won back in th’ livin’ room,” she yelled. “I got somethin’ t’ say t’ Fred. I don’t want nobody but Fred a-hearin’ it. G’won.” And suddenly her voice had a squeezing sound, and there was a high-pitched grunt.

  Bea started back up the stairs, but Annie Lee yelled, “I’m okay! Y’all get back inside, I’m okay. Hit ain’t a-comin’. I’ll call y’all if hit starts comin’. G’won!”

  I went back to the bed, and a moment later Mamie come in followed by Bea. Mamie sat down in her rocker, and Bea stood by the stove. Bea looked tired and she folded her arms and let her chin slump down near her chest, her eyes almost closed. Outside, the storm was going crazy with icy snow hitting the window. Nobody said anything for a while, then Bea saw me.

  “Samuel Zilney! My Lord, how you’ve
growed.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said.

  “He’s growed sure enough,” said Mamie. “Him and Fred make more’n a man. I can’t tell you how much help Samuel’s been since Alfred died. Wudn’t for his help, we’d be out of wood and freezin’ and wouldn’t have stretched our foodstuffs near as far as we have. Been a big help.”

  Bea laughed kind of quiet, then said, “Never seen so many men at a birthin’ in all my life. How old you, Samuel?”

  “Twelve,” I answered.

  “Times is a-changin’,” she said, raising her eyebrows and looking at Mamie.

  “Ain’t they,” said Mamie, giving a big sigh.

  It got quiet again except for the storm, and in a few minutes Bea walked over to the window, cupped her hands around her eyes, and looked out. “Hit’s awful,” she said. “Snowin’ like a demon. Winds a-driftin’ hit everywheres.”

  “Figured we were gonna have a bad one t’night,” said Mamie.

  There wudn’t anything else to say. Time just hung. Finally, Bea said she better look in on Annie Lee whether she liked it or not, then went out through the curtains and up the stairs.

  A few minutes later Fred come down and crawled onto the bed. He didn’t say anything, just lay there staring straight up. Pretty soon, he started to shake, then rolled off the bed and ran for the door. Mamie started to yell for him not to go outside, but he was gone before she could.

  I didn’t know what to do. Outside, it was the wildest winter night ever. The door to the outhouse was banging, and stuff was slamming into the gate and fence. One time, I thought I heard the kitchen roof flop. I kept thinking of Fred. He might freeze to death. I got so worried, I went to the kitchen door and opened it.

  It was terrible. You couldn’t see anything for the blinding, swirling snow which had some kind of little ice chips in it. It was colder than I ever felt before and I knew dressed like he was Fred would die if he didn’t come back inside soon. I was getting ready to go get him when there he was just a few feet in front of me, walking like a ghost, staring straight ahead. He brushed past me and I closed the door and followed. There was snow in his hair, and the light from the coal oil lamp made him look salt-and-pepper gray. In the living room, he stood by the stove with his hands behind him.

  Mamie kept watching him, looking right at him, but he didn’t look back. “What is it you know, Fred?” she asked. “I wanta know too. I’m Annie Lee’s mama and I got a right.”

  Fred didn’t answer straight out, or even look at Mamie. When he did speak, his words tumbled through the terrible sounds outside the house. “Little Alfred’s dead.”

  Mamie’s mouth fell open and she set forward in her rocker. “Fred, don’t say a thing like that. You don’t know that. Hit ain’t even been born yet!”

  “Little Alfred’s dead,” Fred repeated.

  “But, Fred . . . you don’t know that?”

  Fred’s head shook. “Annie Lee told me. She said he was dead and I know she’s right. I’m sorry, Mama. It ain’t right, him dyin’. I can’t understand why God had t’ do it. Little Alfred was all we had. We didn’t ask for nothin’ else. He was the onliest thing we asked for. I reckon he had t’ die on account of th’ sin, but I don’t see why. WK could’ve died, or even Annie Lee. She said hit too. Don’t see why it had t’ be little Alfred. Just ain’t right.”

  I heard Thelma Jean behind her blanket in the corner, then she come running over and flung herself on the bed beside me and started crying shoulder-shaking tears. For a couple seconds I didn’t move, then she shook harder and harder and I put my hand on her back and patted her. She grabbed me around the waist and buried her face in my belly and I stroked her head and back and let her sob. She still stunk like she always did, but somehow now it was different. She couldn’t help being who she was. She was Thelma Jean and she was feeling awful and wanted a friend. Somebody who could forget for a while how dumb she was and how much she stunk and right now I was him so I kept stroking her and stroking her and she kept squeezing and pushing her face into my belly until, finally, she quit.

  The storm, which had kept getting wilder and I thought was going to lift the roof, began quieting down. I could hear footfalls on the stairs. The curtains opened and there stood Bea. Big like a mountain, her giant hands open toward us. Tears were streaming down her face. She tried to speak but a croak come out instead.

  “We know, Bea,” said Mamie.

  “The cord was wrapped around hit’s neck. She didn’t make a sound. Just lay there through it all. Suffered harder’n anybody I ever seen. She knowed. I swear t’ God she knowed. She didn’t even ask.”

  When Bea stopped talking, she turned to Fred and looked at him for a few seconds like she was seeing a person she had never met before. “She wants to see you,” she said, and he went through the curtains and into the dark.

  The four of us just kind of set in the flickering lamplight. Outside it was dead quiet. I went to the window and rubbed a hole in the frost. The moon was out, and I could smell the cold through the windowpane.

  Mamie got up, her skirt rustling. “I’m goin’ upstairs,” she said. “I’m gonna take Thelma Jean. I thank you for your help, Bea. You’ve done all a body could ask. You too, Samuel. Th’storm’s over. Y’all can make hit home easy,” and I knew she wanted us to go and so did Bea.

  “Say goodbye t’ Fred for me,” I said, putting on my mackinaw. “Tell him I’m sorry about little Alfred. Tell Annie Lee that too.”

  I went out the kitchen door and when I climbed the gate I sat for a moment. A big moon was shining and everything was white. White the yard, white the trees, white the fields and the things beyond. Pure white. I jumped down on the other side of the gate and plowed through the snow toward home. When I come to the crest of the hill at the end of the hickory and locust grove, I stopped again and looked into the distance. The mist was gone. I could see the stock barn, and the gates in front of it all powdered white. Everything was beautiful in the light of the full moon. I took a deep breath, and it was clean and cold and went to the bottom of my chest. As I stood and looked I felt something was different. I didn’t know what it was but somehow I knew it was always going to be different. It made me feel kind of sad. I trudged home through the drifts, said good night to the folks, who had been worried about me, and went to bed.

  48

  After that night, Fred did his usual thing and stayed away from everybody. I went back to the Mulligan house a couple weeks later. As I was climbing the hog lot gate I looked up to see Annie Lee in the upstairs window.

  “Hi, Samuel.”

  I froze straddling the gate and turned toward her. I never saw anybody look so sad. “Hi, Annie Lee,” and I couldn’t think of nothing else to say. Then I said, “How y’ doin’?”

  “Tolerable,” she said, and sighed. “Lookin’ for Fred?”

  “Yeah, I was.”

  “He won’t talk t’ you, Samuel. Won’t talk t’ nobody outside the fambly and don’t say much t’ us. You know how he is. I ’preciate your comin’, but maybe hit’s best t’ give us a little more time.”

  I nodded and just straddled the gate for a while. Then I said, “Tell him I said hi.”

  “I will.”

  I jumped down to walk home, then heard Annie Lee say: “Samuel.”

  I turned and faced her. Her eyes were still sad but somehow they looked different.

  “You’re a good man, Samuel.”

  I thought that was a strange thing to say, but it made me feel good. “Thanks, Annie Lee. You’re a good woman too.”

  Annie Lee just smiled at me. It was the sweetest smile.

  I kept on being down in the dumps. Some because of Fred, but even more because we were going to leave Berman’s. One day Dad got a phone call from a guy who had been looking for a farm for us. Dad sounded awful excited after the fellow told him about it and about how much it cost. The very next day the three of us took off for Indiana to see it. It sure was a long way. It seemed like we drove forever until we came
to a town called Crawfordsville. That’s where we met this guy who showed us the farm. It was ugly as a pig’s ass, the buildings all run down, and only a couple trees on it. The fields looked like they had been cropped to death and the whole farm was real flat. I mean, wudn’t enough slope to get a car rolling if its battery run down. Dead flat! The whole area was flat, every farm.

  The house hadn’t been lived in for a couple years and even though it had electricity and gas and a bathroom, everything was shabby. I felt better as soon as I saw the place because I knew we would never buy a farm that ugly.

  We spent a couple of hours there looking, then driving around and ended up in the town of Crawfordsville. It was a pretty nice town and had a movie theater. It was thirteen miles from the farm we were looking at though, and that’s a lot of pedaling on a bike. Mom and Dad sent me to the movies and said they would pick me up in a couple of hours. It was a good show. I was warm and happy until I walked out, and there was Mom and Dad waiting for me. They grabbed and hugged me and Dad said that I wudn’t a sharecropper’s kid anymore. We were proud owners of a fine farm!

  “What farm?” I asked.

  Dad laughed. “Why the one we just looked at, of course.”

  I nigh puked. How could they buy that old junk farm? Then Dad started talking about how we were going to fix it up and how it was going to take a lot of work because we couldn’t hire it done and how he was going need me to have the same kind of backbone that he and Mom had. Then he said we were going to get a tractor and lots of equipment, that the guy knew where we could get all of that stuff and it was a lot for the money and for me to get in the car because they were going to go up and go through my new school right now.

  The school was a big old thing, bigger than Middletown by a lot. It was ugly too, except for the basketball court, which was really nice. I stood and watched their team practice. They were good, boy. I never saw high school players that good before and I knew wudn’t any way I was ever going to make that team. By the time we got back to Berman’s, I was lower than a mole’s ass and it’s under the ground.