The Vine That Ate the South

by J. D. Wilkes

  I might as well face up to reality. These woods are haunted as shit. Pardon my French. I don’t like to cuss but hey, it’s true… and I’m a little drunk now. Plus, it’s like I heard Brother Tazewell say once: “There’s nothing indecent about the naked truth.”

  ENTROPY

  Onward we push to the Kudzu House, standing on the pedals and coasting toward the green oblivion. Stars are made by the spaces between the leaves overhead. Constellations too, if you connect them with a dotted line. They plot out all new mythical heroes and beasts… a whole other cast of our own Dixie-fried characters. It’s Daniel Boone instead of Orion, John Henry instead of Perseus, the White Thing instead of Capricorn, and Legba instead of Cancer—all cloistered in the clouds of our windswept canopy.

  Pinpricks of light shimmer the way planets do through an atmospheric lens. Or gleam like the knowing, winking eye of our “wise fool” archetype, that Southern singularity who casts his pearls of country brilliance before the educated fool, just as points of sunlight are cast down here to sift through the dust in diagonal bolide rays. Like a shower of comets, they land at last to twinkle up from the trail bed, the lower hemisphere of this giant, sparkling portal where the Southern Cross tilts to form the Confederate X. It is a forest-green galaxy full of primitive life, alien ticks, and snakes, that when taken in altogether is to be respected, marveled at… even feared. Eternally dense into inner space yet ever expanding its Kudzu province without, the vaults of The Deadening occupy an echelon neither micro nor macro, but perfectly sublime from our humbled perspective. The wake of Carver’s trail-powder whips it all into nebular motion. A swirling Coriolis of dreams and fears.

  And now ghosts!

  We must muscle our bikes through the thicket near the cabin of Carver’s Uncle Earl.

  Poor Uncle Earl seems to be in worse shape than we are. He is out back by the doghouse, duded up like an urban cowboy and fumbling for his midday moonshine. He’ll soon be aboard the swayback of an old gray mare, a horse that, back in her day, was the pony to bet on. That’s what everybody said. But not anymore.

  Earl’s ten-gallon Resistol is brand spanking new and slightly too big for his head. It pushes the tops of his ears down like a dog. And his paunchy tucked-in rodeo shirt makes him look like a pregnant pencil.

  “All hat and no cattle,” Carver muses.

  Uncle Earl moseys about, fiddling with his leather tack and looking like a rejected singing cowboy from the ’40s. We crack up and it feels good to laugh. To laugh for real, finally. But our smiles fade as soon as he climbs into his saddle. It’s a sad sight to behold. There he begins to sit in the blazing sun for what Carver says will be hours, brushing his horse’s mane, getting drunk, and crying tears of loneliness.

  “He ain’t been the same since Aunt Glennis left him all alone with that blown-out ol’ racehorse. They had a lot of luck way back when, won the Preakness even! Then they got married. But when the luck run out he found out he was hitched to a bitch! Yessir, unequally yoked in the headlock of wedlock, ha ha! All she did was sit around naggin’ him and paintin’ her dad-gum fingernails. And not her real fingernails neither. After that farmin’ accident, all she had was little nubs fer fingers. But she’d paint ’em up anyway. Fake little red fingernails at the end of each nub.

  “Well, Earl, that poor sum’mitch, he went off t’work one day and left the CB on in the kitchen. Glennis got to talkin’ on it and runned off with some trucker. Handle was ‘Squirrel.’

  “She came a-crawlin’ back though, and he let ’er back in the trailer. But the old biddy up and died of brain cancer a few years later.”

  “Let’s leave him be,” I suggest.

  So onward we press, pedaling hard to put some space between us and the Masonic Lodge. Three mangy blue heelers come scampering down a dirt embankment that’s been piled up to the tin roof of a woodshed. Now they’re nipping at our boots. I quickly glimpse how someone has carved the word COPPERHEAD into the woodshed planks. It’s the same word that was on the Freemasons’ pulpit. But I don’t see any snakes around.

  “Git!” Carver shoos. “These dogs got AIDS! I knowed the owner. Chester the Molester! Went to California so he could marry his 12-year-old son. He liked to bofo these here dawgs too.”

  The dogs snarl and buck with each kick to the face. Two of them squeal and give up.

  “I forgot to tell ya, speakin’ of crazy Aunt Glennis. She had a blue heeler. Uncle Earl used to tease her about that dog. Any time it made a peep, Earl said it was just barkin’ at the voices in ’er head. Funny he said that because it turnt out it was smellin’ ’er brain cancer. Dogs kin smell cancer, y’know. In fact, that dog damn near saved ’er life with all that racket, kinfolk takin’ notice the way they did. But it was too late. The cancer was too fur along. She died and Uncle Earl hain’t been the same never since. He thought it’d be sweet if they buried her next to the doghouse. Like some kinda got-dern Disney movie. But, wouldn’t you know it. That damn dog went and dug up her skull and runned off with it! He was still tryin’ to get at that cancer!”

  “Gawwd!” I say, channeling my laughter into the bike pedals. Thighs are burning. Push, man, push!

  “I dated a gal that had a blue heeler too. They’s good dogs, my favorite breed now. Don’t let these bastards fool ya. YAH!” Carver kicks the last one in the face.

  “Got to know her dog. How long did y’all date?”

  “About a month or two. She wuddn’t much to look at, but she had some tig ol’ bitties. And she could gob the chrome right off a trailer hitch, boy! Whoo-wee!”

  Hmm, I figure I’ll have to marry the first girl I find who likes chasing ghosts and riding bikes around out in the woods. Someone who, with only the rarest of qualities, can share with me the music in her teeth. That shouldn’t be too hard to find, right? Maybe I can still talk Delilah into dumping ol’ Stoney Kingston. That lying, cheating sack of crap.

  The final AIDS Wolf offers one last snarl and goes snooping off into No-Man’s-Land.

  HUNCHBACK

  Pedaling on, we pass a trackside placard commemorating the fatal flood that took the lives of six Amish children. The horse and buggy were washed off a bridge after a downpour in 1997. I remember the story well. It was in the paper. This is the place they named “Ghost Ditch.”

  Chinquapins and gumballs pop under the rubber weight of our wheels. Patches of cattails—more like cat o’ nine tails—lash our legs near bloody. But we’re making headway now. There’s a pot-bellied hopper car capsized in the ditch up ahead. From here, it looks to be graffitied by some rail riders. Conrail Twitty and Virginia Zeke.

  We’re off to check it out and…

  SMACK.

  Like a bomb, a brown smudge whips down from on high and Carver is thrown to the ground.

  “Aagh!”

  I hop off my bike in a panic.

  I run to meet him and discover his monkey fez and the top of his head are covered in excrement. The sounds of squealing laughter, more plopping matter, and bizarre noises bewilder.

  “Get outta here! It’s Dooney!” Carver points upward. Looking fifty feet up I behold the naked undercarriage of a grown man defecating from a tree limb. I barely miss getting hit myself.

  “Got-dammit, Dooney! I’m gonna KILL you!!”

  The shrill squeals of this Dooney fella curdle my blood like a catfight heard at night. I can see him now in his Elmer Fudd hat. He is gathering up his britches and escaping along a wobbly path of planks nailed throughout the canopy. I know I have seen him before. Him and his planks.

  Whoever he is, he’s a scrawny little booger, missing some bones in his neck and possibly a chromosome or two. Some gas-huffer, I reckon. Yet I marvel at how he uses the bouncing of the timbers to spring gracefully from tree to tree, like a hunchback leaping along the vaults of a cathedral.

  I return to find my befouled friend toweling off the mess with a t-shirt and some canteen water. But no amount of cleansing will be enough in so many, many ways.

  “I am
gonna kill that idiot!” Carver is the maddest I’ve ever seen him, and understandably so, given that he was just, well, shat upon.

  “I thought I saw somebody out there.” I gasp. “That fella’s probably been following us since Carter Mill. Who is Dooney?”

  “Ughhhh! Dooney Burkeholder. Great grandson of the feller what owned all this property years ago. But Dooney’s no count. He’s just a mute-ass sum’mitch! Bastard cain’t even speak, but everybody feels sorry for him.” Carver sings that last part with sarcasm.

  “He’s just some sawn-off, funny-lookin’ maniac. They gave him a job at the fillin’ station. Always forgets to put the gas caps back on before people drive off. They let him wear a gold robe and sing in church too, but he just moves his lips. Hell, he cain’t even say his own damn name! But for some reason they even went and made ’im an orner-rary deacon! He just hangs out at church all the time havin’ people feel sorry for ’im. But he’s dad-gum plum filthy! If they only knowed he was goin’ around shittin’ on folks in the woods! Got-DAMMIT!!”

  Carver keeps angrily daubing the filth out of his hair. Fat green-eyed flies are starting to pelt us and the smell is just punishing.

  “Ughhh. I gotta run back over to the crick and warsh off. You see which way he runned to?”

  “He went south, I think? Looks like those crazy bunch of boards run northwest to southeast.” I check with my compass. “Yep.”

  Carver bikes back to the nearest bend in Clarks River while I hide in a patch of widow’s tears. I’m buzzing and paranoid yet exhilarated. I carefully eyeball the treetops for any more trouble. However, it seems I’ve come to nest in a furious plat of poison ivy too. Our state bird, the mosquito, makes its appearance next. There’s a swarm of ’em. Then chiggers, fire ants, and humidity all join in. Yes, The Deadening has set about to torture me here in my hiding place. But I will grin and bear it if the alternative is getting pooped on by Dooney.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  SERPENT

  Skitch Canute.

  A dangerous development.

  Psychedelic consequences.

  In this misery of bug bites and allergy symptoms, my mind travels to a happy place. To memories of my bittersweet teenage crush and the masochistic savoring of pain and melodrama. Back further to my days of childhood in a safe home with Mama. The major scales and high gloss of youthful optimism.

  Melancholy and sentimentality too. Warm glowing candles and hymns sung around the Magnus organ. Close-knit family get-togethers with Grandma and Grandpa, and other wistful recollections of my country home. The welcoming golden glow envelops me as I bounce around on the parlor furniture. I am young, almost weightless, and happy; I can smell the nostalgic bouquet of bacon and coffee. Mama’s organ music echoes like a heavenly music box and I am safe and innocent for now. Daddy’s dead.

  I remember when Delilah took my innocence in her college apartment one night as the wind blew through those lace curtains. I was so in love with her messy black hair, her slightly put-on cosmopolitan accent, and her free spirit. I could tell she wasn’t all mine but I didn’t even care at the time. What a body! I was transfixed! And for that one beautiful summer I stayed with her, she was my home.

  My refuge now will be the pastel colors of her vintage kitchen cups, her collection of medicine tins, and the overflowing ashtray beneath the wind chimes of her sundeck. Soft winds would whistle across the glass lips of old 7Up bottles lined along the rail, and the hum of their odd-pitched notes joined in with the chimes above. The days were bathed in the most heavenly light. With pinks and golds, it cast a sadness far heavier than the grayest of skies. And although this mantle remains, perhaps, once all this is over, she will welcome me back with that strange love we left behind.

  It’s time to stop kidding myself. It’s time to stop thinking that Nature is beautiful in all her “many forms of intensity.” Buzzards and bones and death and Dooney; I’m sick of it all and I want to go home. You can keep your grays and browns, your stagnant water and impenetrable wilds. Away with self-inflicted pain! My throat is constricting. My allergies inflaming. I’ve seen one too many dead bodies for the day… for an entire lifetime! It’s not funny anymore. Life is real.

  And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son. But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry.

  —Luke 15:21-23 KJV

  I commence building my nest in the thicket. Pushing leaves and sticks out of the way. I just want to sit here and hide until Carver gets back.

  Jeesh, what would I do without that guy?

  I have no skills out here. My father left me vulnerable. All I remember of him is blended with those impressions I somehow received from beyond the cradle. For in the days, weeks, and months before I was conceived, I must have existed as the “twinkle” in his eye. And what set me there a-twinklin’ was not just his lust for Mama, but a sinister intensity—one perhaps as old as our shared bloodline. Sure, I was just a tiny window-shaped glint, sparkling there in his retina. Peering out like a candle through a pane, set there in vigil. But even as such a little glimmer, I saw how he was: a man who had nothing good to share with his one-day son, and nothing to share with the world but darkness. So it has been upon me to find my own mentor. To make my own friends.

  Enter the Canutes…

  SKITCH

  I first met Carver and his insane brother, Skitch, ten weeks ago at a Hickman County roadhouse. Honky-tonk music and stale smoke hung in the air as Carver announced to the crowd it was his birthday. Skitch sat back in silence, wearing sunglasses indoors and holding his hand over a match flame. “Like they do in them movies.” Carver bought a round for the whole bar, I figure with all that inheritance, and the jukebox blared:

  I like my women just a little on the trashy side.

  When they wear their clothes too tight and their hair is dyed.

  Too much lipstick and too much rouge

  Gets me excited, leaves me feelin’ confused.

  And I like my women just a little on the trashy side.

  By the end of the night the two siblings, plus Carver’s newfound girlfriend—some honey with tribal “ass antlers” tattooed above her butt cleavage—needed a designated driver. Out of some tweaked sense of duty/adventure, I offered to drive the strangers. So away we went into the night. Skitch sat shotgun while the two lovebirds dry-humped in the backseat. What had I gotten myself into?

  It was a long, tense, awkward drive into the darkest country night. Roadside memorial wreaths marked each breakneck curve. Skitch just sat there, petting his holster and staring face-forward like a seething Texas gun nut. The only sounds were the cicadas outside and the shameless manhandling going on in the backseat. I opened the sunroof to grab some white noise and fresh air.

  A few miles into my demented midnight run I heard the unmistakable sounds of coitus coming from the backseat. Sure enough, the rearview mirror confirmed Carver’s sweaty naked butt bobbing up and down. That’s when brother Skitch inexplicably snapped to life, spun his head around and started high-fiving his brother’s backside. Smacking it and hollering “Whoo-Hoo! Git it, boy! Git it! Shoot that thang!” Then he whipped back around, rolled down the window, and started firing his gun into the guardrail.

  Seconds later the odor of Carver’s seed hit the air.

  “NO! Lord, no!” I screamed. “Not in my car!” I swerved to the shoulder. “Get out! All of you! Dammit! I can smell that back there!”

  “Hey, that ain’t me, man,” Carver answered back. “That’s just them come-trees a-blowin’ in through the sunroof. They just stink like that!”

  Skitch nodded silently and poofed the gunsmoke from his barrel like a bandit.

  That night warped me for sure. But ever since, I’ve only wanted more. Call it Stockholm syndrome, or whatever you want. Maybe I�
�ve always played it too safe. These feral personalities give me some dark thrill, something I need. Whatever the reason or “daddy issues,” it has unfortunately led to this moment of misery. I would’ve loved to been born as simple-minded as Carver and his ilk: not a worry in the world and dumb as a box of rocks.

  VENOM

  In my rummaging through the fallen leaves I disturb a sleeping pit viper. Twin pricks and the sensation of tiny jaw muscles sink into the meat of my thumb. It sends me howling with panic. I reel as the serpent recoils into a hoop and hisses. The vilest language I know flows in a steady stream. Surely Carver heard me and will come a-runnin’.

  Lub Dub. Lub Dub. The serpent slithers into the blear as the hot pinpricks throb. I can feel the viperbane burn and spread fast, and I need to think quick. What to do, what to do? My arm is stiffening and I am walking in stupid circles. Blurry circles.

  Once to my bike, I fumble for anything to bleed myself with. No knife, no nothing! Invoking God, I curse aloud, swearing up and down, turning the air blue. Why didn’t I go back for my machete? Carver took both his machete and his pocketknife with him. Like a feeble kneeling child, I begin to saw at my flesh with the dull rusty bicycle chain.

  “YOOOO CARVERRRRR!”

  The Deadening mocks me with a long sarcastic echo. Where is he? Surely there’s a cure he could fashion from some Indian root, some ginseng or something. Some panacea.

  Lub Dub. Lub Dub. Didn’t he tell me he had his grandmother’s Mad Stone? That petrified piece of deer cud used to suck the poison out of bites. Didn’t he say he brought that with him? Or is it still around the throat of old Granny Canute, the midwife and root doctor of their reservation?

  Snapping to, I unzip my Carhartts and grab my belt to fashion a tourniquet. My throat and eyes are swelling shut as the venom sears through my veins. My face is pallid and palsied with the pangs of death.