by Chris Fabry
“You don’t have to talk with him if you don’t want to. I’ll do the talking. You can just sit in the corner and look pretty.”
“Talk about what? What possible good could come from this?”
Ruthie drew even closer. “There’s something real going on inside you. Do you feel the unease? I told you God was stirring your pot, leading you into something deeper. Maybe taking you down a road where you didn’t want to go.”
Of course there was something wrong. Terribly wrong. But only God knew. I was still on the outside looking in.
“You’re hiding. You’re doing what I used to do when the Jehovah’s Witnesses showed up.”
“What?”
“I’d see two people heading up the driveway, Bibles in hand. I’d hide in the bathroom and let my dog bark until they went away.”
“I can’t imagine you being afraid of arguing the Bible with them.”
“I wasn’t afraid of them. I was afraid of me. What I might not know. What answers I didn’t have.”
What this had to do with me and a trip to Clarkston, I couldn’t piece together.
Ruthie opened her purse and pulled out a Kleenex. Then she placed the black behemoth on the floor as a knight might shed his coat of armor and sword and took off her glasses. She rubbed the lenses, then stuffed the tissue back in her purse. “I don’t get direct revelation. I told Richard that. I don’t want anybody thinking I’m so close to the Almighty that he talks to me, but I got an impression last night that won’t leave me alone. A feeling about this fellow. Clarkston’s a place you need to go, and I want to be there when you walk in.”
I shook my head. “I appreciate what you’re doing. I really do. But you know how busy a time this is. And I have children. The responsibilities at the church are enough for me to say no to this, but with the kids . . .”
“I talked it over with the preacher. He said he would work everything out. You can be gone the whole day. Why would you want to pass up such good company? And the trees and hills this time of year are just sprouting green.”
I had settled into a good life, a busy life, one that made me feel important, as if I were holding up four pillars of my little world, and if any of them moved the slightest, the whole thing would come tumbling down. But I couldn’t remember the last time I had slept the whole night with my husband. I also couldn’t remember when we had last made love.
“Well, if you don’t want my help, I’ll understand,” Ruthie said.
“Did he put you up to this? Richard?”
Ruthie pursed her lips and cocked her head at me. “I’m going to Clarkston next Tuesday. I’ve set up the meeting with the people there. If you want to get on board the Ruthie train, you’d best be making your decision.”
“Wait,” I said as she reached the door. “If I come with you, will you come to the luncheon?”
She squinted.
“The Lord told me you needed to come,” I said, managing a smile.
“You come with me, and I’ll make sure it’s a spring luncheon those hyenas in there will never forget.”
Later that night, while the children were occupied, Richard asked how my day had gone, a fresh newspaper folded under his arm. I told him Ruthie and I had met in his office at the church and what she’d asked.
“I think it would probably be good for you to go,” he said.
“You’re not jealous? You’re not afraid that . . . ?”
He put an arm around me. “I trust you, Karin. Who knows? Old feelings may come up. That’s normal. But maybe they need to.”
Karin’s Journal
I remember the first day I saw Will. It was sixth grade, back when that was the top rung of elementary school. My family had moved a few miles east from the country to town. Wild, wonderful Dogwood, the gateway to the end of the world. No stoplight. One grocery store. Two gas stations directly across from each other on Route 60. The water treatment plant that sent a haze over the town.
I wore shiny shoes with buckles, socks to the knees, a ribbon in my hair, and a dress I held down during recess. I was trying hard to fit in with the others, but my clothes set me apart. Most girls wore jeans or shorts. I was so happy in that outfit, so secure and full of joy. Others stole the joy, and I returned home determined to mute my beauty as much as possible.
The instant Will walked through the door of the classroom, my face flushed. He had an air of confidence that none of the others had. A gentleness. An awareness of others. His body already lanky, his fingers already calloused and hardened by farm work, he glided into his chair instead of collapsing like the others.
Will wasn’t what anyone would call handsome, at least the way it was defined back then. There were slight imperfections: his hair was too short, his clothes not in style—a product of life on a farm—and his ears were a bit large. He looked like Alfred E. Neuman without the overbite or goofy face.
But there was something about him that transcended outward definition or judgment. An innate sense of himself. He was the kind of boy who carried dreams in his torn back pocket—dreams others could never hope to see. Other boys fixated on pocketknives and bicycles and minibikes, but Will traded in the future. Whether that future was far away from the steep hills that locked the town in its own shadowy world or just down the road, I couldn’t tell. But I had no doubt, even in the sixth grade, that Will Hatfield would grab freedom by the throat and one day travel far. I could tell by the way he thumbed through his math book. I could tell by the excitement in his eyes when we studied science or art or English.
The teachers could tell it as well, and he endeared himself to them by remembering their birthdays and actually completing his homework.
I studied his shy movements around the other girls. He seemed at home on the baseball diamond, not bossing kids around or yelling at inept play but quietly, confidently attacking the game. He ran the bases of my dreams—he still does—his jeans sagging rounding second, tufts of dust pluming from the base paths, perfectly tucking his left leg under his right and sliding under the tag at third.
He looked at me that first day and flashed a smile—and took my breath away. He didn’t look again all day. When the teacher, an ancient woman with black cat-eye glasses, called on him to read, I followed along on the page. His voice was strong and deep, and the only flaw I found in it was the high-pitched, cackling laugh. When he thought something was funny, everybody knew it. He’d throw his head back and laugh with abandon. Other kids made fun of it, even imitated him, but he either didn’t notice or didn’t care.
Two days later, the class bursting at the seams, the principal appeared with a piece of paper and read the names of those who would journey to the new building. An extra class with a younger teacher. Mine was not on the list. His was. It was our first separation but not the last.
Sometimes I saw Will on the playground or in the field, but our paths rarely crossed. He rode the bus, miles back into the hills. I lived three blocks from school. I ate hot lunch or walked home to eat with my mother. He brought a brown paper sack and ate outside between innings, except when it rained and he sat on the steps outside the gym under the eaves.
Though Will seemed mostly disinterested in me, I caught him stealing glances. During games, class performances, or in gym class, which we shared, I saw him look my way and smile.
I thought of passing a note, but that seemed too forward. Maybe I could tell a friend who could tell one of his friends, but that seemed too desperate.
Our silence lasted until the spelling bee. I found myself one row ahead of him, a chair to the left, and saw him in my peripheral vision if I turned my head slightly to the right. Each time I did, he was looking at me, studying my hair, my back, my dress. It would have been even more exhilarating if I hadn’t been so competitive. Spelling was my thing. I had a natural sense of words and how they were correctly used, put together. In first grade I could hear a word and figure out how to spell it.
And this crowd wasn’t exactly much competition. I had memorized
forward and backward the list of words the Herald-Dispatch gave out to contestants, knew every word and pronunciation and the origins of most. In the first round, six of the thirty-four participants misspelled their words, and everyone moved to fill in their seats.
Through the fourth round there were only ten of us left. In the fifth round, four more dropped out and Will took his place beside me. I glanced at him, smiled, and focused on the teacher pronouncing the words.
“Conscience,” the teacher said.
It was the easiest word in the book. Just add con with science. “C-o-n-s-c-i-e-n-c-e.”
“Correct.”
Everyone clapped. Then it was Will’s turn.
“Your word is rhythm,” the teacher said.
Sweat formed on the back of his neck, and he pulled his right arm close to his body with his left hand. He seemed almost wounded. “R-h-y-t-h-m.”
The audience applauded until it was just the two of us. Chairs were removed and we stood together, closer than we’d ever been before.
“I’m sure you’re going to win,” I said, smiling. Confident.
Will leaned over and whispered something I couldn’t make out over the applause. “What did you say?” But the audience was quiet now, and I focused on the teacher.
I spelled congratulate correctly and stepped back.
He smiled at me.
“Belfry,” the teacher said. “Where the bells are.”
“B-e-l-l-f-r-y.”
A tinny bell rang.
I spelled proclamation correctly and the crowd applauded.
Will didn’t slump his shoulders or shove his hands into his pockets. He simply reached out a hand. I offered one in return and he squeezed it gently. “You’re really good,” he said. “You deserved to win.”
“You’ll beat me next time,” I said.
After school, as I walked home savoring the pleasure of the medal I wore on my sweater, I heard someone behind me in the tall grass. I turned, saw Will’s face, and my heart fluttered. “I thought you rode the bus.”
“Need the exercise.”
I knew that wasn’t true. He would have to walk several miles to get home this way. “You can still catch your bus.”
Will shrugged. “Not today.”
He caught up with me and we walked side by side past the baseball field, the rusted backstop, and down toward the creek that led to the road. Water lapped over rocks and trickled through the town, and I wondered where the water would stop flowing, if it would find the Mud River and then the Ohio and eventually the Mississippi. Then the ocean. Our lives are like that, filled with thoughts that swim like minnows.
“You knew how to spell belfry,” I said.
He stopped and picked up a stick, broke it, and handed me half.
I didn’t know what to do, so I held it and looked at his eyes. There was something there, something I didn’t see in any other sixth grader.
“Got mixed up when the teacher said it was where the bells are,” he said.
“No way. You missed on purpose.”
Will climbed the steep bank, holding out a hand for me. He moved effortlessly, gliding, his legs as strong as fence posts. “Come on. I’ll race you.”
“I can’t race in these shoes,” I said.
He cackled. “No, with these. Throw yours in.”
We tossed the sticks in, and they landed in a quiet pool near the metal drain underneath the road. The sticks swirled in the circling water, touching each other slightly, then slowly moved toward the rippling water and rocks.
“I’m going to beat you twice today.” I giggled and clapped.
He laughed and we watched the water draw our boats away, past the sandbar, skittering over rocks and chugging out of sight.
He grabbed my hand and started down the hill. “Following them is the most fun.”
But we had been so engrossed in what was before us that we didn’t hear footsteps behind us.
“Karin?” my mother called. “You come on home now.”
I turned, embarrassed. My cheeks flushed and something inside said I was bad, disobedient. Or maybe that he was bad. I grabbed my books from the dirt and hugged them tight. “Mama, I won the spelling bee today!”
She gathered me in and we walked home. I beamed, showing her the medal, and she fawned over it. When we reached the driveway, Mama looked back and stared. I had seen that look many times before. Once in a store in Charleston when I walked too close to some glass figurines. Eyes that communicated what words never could.
Stay away from my daughter, trash, she seemed to say.
It wasn’t until I was inside that I looked at the road through the front window. Will had turned to walk the dusty road home. At the top of the hill, he veered left and cut through a field. He would have to traverse a few of them and cross the creek as well. His missing the word angered me, as if he had snatched my victory and was getting satisfaction out of it by following me home.
I went to sleep that night thinking of the bobbing, floating sticks and how they were like our lives. Carried along by a current bigger than either of us, oblivious to the obstacles ahead.
Karin
I rolled down the passenger-side window and let the wind blow through the car, fluttering my hair. It gave me a sense of freedom I hadn’t felt in a long time. Kids in car seats don’t like strong wind nor do husbands with receding hairlines.
In one long conversation we’d had on the lawn, Ruthie, through her genial poking and prodding of the soul, helped me see how much I had become a prisoner of small things. ChapStick. Tic Tacs. A favorite pen. A television program I simply couldn’t miss. Air-conditioning.
“You can measure your life by the things that control you. People’s reactions, for instance,” she said.
At that moment in the car, I did not care a bit about my hair, the way my blouse flapped in the breeze, or that we looked like such an unusual pair. Ruthie sensed it, I think, and smiled as she rolled her window down. It made me think of the tune “I’ll Fly Away,” because that’s what I thought her hair would do.
“How does it feel?” Ruthie said.
“Amazing,” I said. “Free. I get so caught up with what to pack in the kids’ lunches each day when they usually just throw the whole thing away. Are you sure you don’t want me to drive?”
“Just relax for a while. I packed us a nice lunch. But we do need something to drink, and I see the gas gauge is a little low.”
The Exxon station was just ahead, and Ruthie pulled up beside an empty pump. I got out and started the pump while she headed for the convenience store. She asked what I wanted to drink and I told her.
“I’ll pay for the gas,” she yelled over her shoulder.
I pressed the right buttons, and the pump numbers sped by. I collected some trash out of the backseat. The garbage can was full. A few ambitious bees flew sorties around a Dairy Queen cup, reminding me of the hornet’s nest when I was a kid.
“The can over here is empty, ma’am,” someone said behind me. “I can take that for you.”
It was a thin man in a gray shirt, his hands and fingernails dark and grimy. He reached for my trash, and something passed between us, a recognition.
“Karin? Is that you?”
I handed him the trash. “Yes. I’m sorry; do I know you?”
“Arron Spurlock. You used to—”
“Arron?” I gasped.
“You used to babysit my little sisters, Doris Jean and Judy.” He touched my shoulder and smiled as wide as the New River Gorge.
Being the oldest, Arron should have been named after his father and grandfather. In some families, names are passed down like old socks and whoever seems to fit them best keeps them. But Arron’s mother was the biggest Elvis fan on the planet, and though she had trouble with her spelling, she named him Arron Pressley Spurlock. He had become “Elvis” for obvious reasons.
“I remember it like it was yesterday,” I said, looking from head to toe. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen you. Yo
u sure have grown up.”
“Yes, ma’am, I guess so.” He looked at me curiously, as if becoming a mother or the wife of the local pastor was as foreign to him as Thai food.
“What is it?”
Arron waved a McDonald’s bag and smiled. “It’s nothing. I just didn’t expect to see you here. I’m glad I did.”
“How are your parents? They well?”
“Tolerable, I guess. At least my mom. She has pleurisy, so it keeps her inside most of the time. Dad passed a few years ago.”
“Arron, I’m so sorry. I hadn’t heard.”
“Well, he had the black lung.”
“And your sisters?”
He rolled his eyes. “She’s still Doris Jean. Always will be, I guess. Judy’s married and moved to Akron with her husband. She has a couple of kids now.”
Ruthie came out of the store carrying a plastic bag that weighed more than she did. She listed to the right, and I was surprised she didn’t tip over. I introduced Arron, and Ruthie smiled and shook his hand. He wiped his hands on his pants twice before clasping hers, but she didn’t seem to mind.
“Let me help you put those things in your car,” he said, opening the back door and taking the plastic bag.
“They don’t make any like you in a slightly older model, do they?” Ruthie said.
Arron blushed. “No, ma’am, but I got a few uncles.”
“Maybe I should meet them.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He shut the door and stood back, nervously looking at the two of us. “So where are you lovely ladies heading today?”
I answered before Ruthie could open her wrinkled mouth. “We’ve planned a day trip to Clarkston. It was Ruthie’s idea.”
At the word Clarkston, Arron looked like I had said Auschwitz or Hiroshima. “That’s about four hours from here, isn’t it?” he said, quickly recovering.
“Not the way we drive,” Ruthie said. “Three and a half at the most as long as the smokies don’t get us.”
There was an awkward silence, and Arron glanced at his watch, then at the tinted front window of the store. “Well, I better be getting back to work.” He touched the brim of his hat. “Nice to see you again, Karin.”
