Dogwood

by Chris Fabry

  For me, it was the loss of an innate dignity I had experienced since childhood—the ability to watch nature’s sublime work on the land. The planting and growing, the process of seeds dying and springing forth to harvest. I regimented my mind inside those walls with reading, exercise, word jumbles, and crossword puzzles. If I couldn’t finish the four words in the jumble in less than thirty seconds, I considered my effort a failure. But no matter how much I trained my mind to think of other things, I never became used to the fact that nothing on the inside of prison ever grew. Other than weeds through the concrete on the basketball court, we didn’t participate in growth. We were simply wasting brain cells, flushing them from our bodies like toxins, never to be used again.

  The first few weeks after my release, I set my mind to several tasks, including cleaning out the basement, dismantling what was left of the barn, and taking inventory of all the farm supplies and equipment worth salvaging. To my surprise, much of the wood I pried loose from the barn was weathered but still usable.

  The pile of boards was growing steadily when a younger man turned in to the driveway and joined me. His name was Earl, a cousin of someone who lived back in the hollow.

  “You could make a fortune by selling this stuff,” he drawled.

  “That so?”

  “Yeah, people are hungry for old things. Spinning wheels, corncribs, that kinda stuff. If you can take it apart, I can help you get it down to the flea market, and you could make some good money.”

  “Why don’t I just sell it to you?” I said. “I’ll probably use some of this for a shed later, but the rest you can have.”

  He shoved his hands in his pockets. “How much you want for it?”

  “Take the whole thing for five hundred dollars.”

  “I ain’t got five hundred dollars.”

  I shrugged. “Okay. Just take what you think you can sell and give me 20 percent.”

  Earl lifted his eyebrows. “How much is that?”

  “You make a hundred dollars; you give me twenty.”

  His eyes lit up. “I can put some stuff in the back of my truck right now.”

  I helped him load an old loom and some rickety farm equipment, a seed planter, a few chairs, and some of my grandfather’s old records.

  “You’re that fellow, aren’t you?” Earl said as he closed the truck gate. “The guy who killed—”

  “Yeah, I’m him.” He just looked at me and I coughed. “I’ll keep the stuff for a few more days, so if you want any more, just have at it.”

  In my quest for what I’d missed, what I’d lost, I rented every Academy Award–winning picture since I had been incarcerated, becoming conversant with the stars and subject matter. I also applied for a library card and printed the New York Times best-seller list for the past fifteen years. I vowed I would read each number one fiction and nonfiction book that I hadn’t read in prison and round out my list with several classics.

  My first trip to rent a video was a sensory experience I could hardly handle. The rows of movies left me helpless, and I gradually found myself retreating to the meager shelves of the library for less choice, more substance.

  I went into town as little as I could, other than to take my mother for groceries, and my mission this day was a permit for a bonfire to rid the barn of every scrap Earl didn’t take. I kept the car at or below the speed limit in town, but I nearly swerved into oncoming traffic when I spotted what was left of our high school.

  I parked on the street and crossed, oblivious to traffic until someone honked. I waved, stepped back, and waited in front of the only familiar sight left, the F-86 Sabre that was displayed near the entrance to the school. It was now flanked by a defunct hot dog stand, peeling orange paint on the building, eaves hanging precariously.

  The junior high had been built on a knoll with the high school directly behind it and much lower, which made it prone to flooding each year. But there was nothing on the knoll—it was just a vacant piece of land.

  There is something about the loss of a school that tears at the soul. Memories of teachers and plays and music performances cannot be bulldozed from the mind, but the town had tried. How many times had I run up the front steps of that school in practice, toning my body, keeping in step with a coach’s whistle? The cinder blocks holding up the school’s name were gone, and a weathered sign was sunk deep into the ground in its place: “Future Home of First National Bank.”

  I climbed the diminished knoll, then walked down the other side toward the covered bridge. It had been restricted to foot traffic now, blocked by orange and white traffic horses. Even the river below had changed. It had eaten away at the bank, and several trees that had looked like pillars were gone, torn out by some flood. Most things in town seemed smaller to me, but this was one exception. The river had widened its path and seemed much deeper.

  The new high school was another five miles west, and I wondered how early the kids at the other end of town had to awaken in order to make the bus trip. I shuffled to the edge of the river and up to the walkway. The murky water rushed past, deep and troubled beneath, as if I were somehow looking at my future in Dogwood.

  I received the burn permit, promising not to use any accelerant, and went home to prepare the pile. I called Carson and Jenna, inviting them to the festivities, and in the cool of one evening, having dug a trench around the remnants of all my father held dear, we set the memories ablaze and watched the smoke and ash rise and float above the trees.

  “It’s almost pretty,” Jenna said, taking my arm and drawing me close. Too close.

  “A lot of history in that pile of junk,” Carson said.

  “A lot of your history you probably don’t want to talk about,” I said.

  “You boys hush,” my mother said.

  “What history?” Jenna said.

  “Just about every eligible girl in the county knew about this barn.” I snickered.

  Jenna loosened her grip long enough for me to get away. “What’s he talking about, Carson?”

  “Watch out now. I see a big copperhead coming out of there.” Carson said it so convincingly and with such visible angst that my mother and Jenna jumped back and for a moment forgot about history.

  I knew it was a ploy but a good one. Copperheads were the most feared snakes of our region, and a bite from one caused visions of horror and stories of relatives who had died or experienced unprecedented agony. Swelled and gangrenous limbs. Our father had protected a nest of blacksnakes around the barn to ward off the copperheads, which they were known to do, and now that nest was gone.

  “Let’s go inside,” Jenna said, walking through a spent strawberry patch.

  “Don’t those copperheads like to eat strawberries?” I said.

  Jenna hopped out of the patch, grabbing the hem of her dress and lifting it high. She looked at me and inched it farther. “Are you teasing me?”

  I ignored her and turned back to the fire, the flames now reaching the tops of trees. They melted leaves and made them wither as the smoke and ash rose like prayers.

  Carson called when he returned home and told me he could see the blaze from Route 60 and that people were pulling off and getting out to look. “I heard one old boy say you were back in town and burning the family home. They thought you’d gone crazy up in that prison. Thought you wanted to kill the rest of us.”

  “What did you say?”

  “What was I supposed to say, that you’re just fine? I wish I could, but I don’t know what happened to the old you. If he’s still out there, I wish you’d find him and tell him to come home.”

  I wanted to tell my brother that I was more myself than I had ever been, that I was finally understanding my place. I also knew no matter how loud I spoke, those without ears to hear can’t.

  He wasn’t finished. “And this thing with Karin . . . you should give it up. It can go nowhere but bad. It’s only going to lead to trouble.”

  “I’ve never counseled you in matters of love, and I’m not going to start
now. Can you pay me the same courtesy?”

  “Are you saying something against Jenna? You don’t think I made a good choice?”

  “I didn’t say that. I just need you to give me some space.”

  “Space and time are all you have.” Carson sighed as if he’d thought of something else that would put my life in perspective, that would solve all the mysteries and I’d snap my fingers and say, Thanks. That solves everything. I’ll be down to the hairdresser’s shop at eight tomorrow to start so that tart of a wife of yours can seduce me.

  But I didn’t say it. I didn’t say anything. I just hung up.

  Later that night, when I was sure the fire was under control and my mother was in her room, the strains of Christian music playing on her stereo, I eased outside and found solace in the darkness, the pitch-black anonymity of the country. Inside Clarkston, there was always a glow from something, even deep into the night, and voices of guards and inmates. Here there was silence, only the continual songs of crickets and frogs.

  I slipped into the old Chevy Impala parked by the garage and drove the familiar route to Karin’s house—the one I remembered so well. I passed the street three times before I got up the courage to drive down the cul-de-sac. Several students from our high school had lived here. Maybe they still did. The sidewalks were pristine, and the grass was finely manicured. Here and there my headlights illumined a Big Wheel or some other toy, but most of the yards were empty, cars inside garages. Upscale. Every bit of it said, Don’t live here unless you can afford it.

  Karin’s parents had lived at the end of Summerdale Lane, and I turned off my lights and stopped at the first curb, parking between two mailboxes. When I’d arrive early in the morning, the outside light would be on, but it was dark now. No children to wait up for.

  I don’t know what I was looking for or hoping for—maybe a connection with the past that didn’t hurt as much—but I got out of the car and walked the sidewalk under a new moon. The smells of lilacs and peonies and freshly mowed grass. An oily spot on the driveway. The stone bench where Karin used to wait for me on those late Tuesday and Thursday mornings. We took long walks on the campus together and sat on a bench and ate lunch outside Old Main or near the fountain dedicated to the plane crash victims of 1970.

  Then I thought of the concert. The night that changed both our lives forever.

  Will

  July 1, 1980

  Cincinnati, Ohio

  We stayed until the last encore. Karin was like a vision beside me, standing and clapping, raising a cigarette lighter. It was a dream, even better than anything my subconscious could dredge up.

  The crowd, frenzied during “Running on Empty,” had relaxed into that long-tunneled view of life “The Pretender” offered and rounded out with “For Everyman.” It struck me that though Browne’s music had become popular, it was not the same as the Top 40, bubblegum, sticky sweet songs that pummeled the airwaves. It was thoughtful and transparent and revealing. His lyrics had depth, a self-confessional spirit that let you in just enough to identify but still kept a measured distance.

  We walked backstage, showing our passes, and were ushered into a large room with Coke machines and tables where the band had eaten earlier. Jackson stood and spoke about the growing danger of a nuclear holocaust and what Ronald Reagan would do if we didn’t stay the course with the current president.

  When the line formed for a picture and a personal word, I told Karin I wanted to leave. She wouldn’t and pushed her way closer until she stood next to the singer, winking at me. “He’s so short,” she mouthed.

  We walked through the empty auditorium. The only people left were roadies in their white T-shirts with the names of every stop printed on the back.

  “Wouldn’t you just die to have that job?” Karin said, looking over her shoulder. “Getting to go to all those places, see all those people. And listen to great music every night.”

  “It’s probably kind of boring,” I said. “Plus, the pay isn’t good. Probably minimum—”

  “Who cares about how much they pay?” she interrupted. “You’d be rubbing shoulders with musicians. Poets. It would be such an experience. Haven’t you ever wanted to do something just for the experience?”

  “I’m here tonight,” I said, smiling.

  Karin turned and walked ahead toward the car. She huddled close to me as we passed a homeless man begging. If I’d been alone, I probably would have walked right past him, but I handed him the rest of the change in my pocket.

  “That’s nice of you, sir,” he said. “You have a real pretty date with you. You deserve something pretty like that.”

  I gave him a look, as if I were going to take my seventy-eight cents back.

  He held up a hand and moved back.

  Karin huddled even closer to me. “He gives me the creeps. He smells terrible and looks worse.”

  I opened the door, and she slid in and glanced at her watch. “It’ll be the witching hour soon.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your birthday. You said you were born early in the morning, right?”

  “Yeah, somewhere between four and five o’clock.”

  Karin reached under the seat and pulled out a paper bag. “I figured we could celebrate.”

  It was a bottle of wine, and she hadn’t thought to bring a corkscrew. I had one on my knife, but I was leery about using it. “That’s all I need is to come home drunk with you.”

  “My parents think I’m staying at Vicki’s house. Come on.” She hounded me for the first few miles, then began to pout. “I thought you’d appreciate it. I even brought two glasses. It doesn’t taste good unless you use real glass.”

  I shook my head. “If the police pull us over with that open, you know what they’ll do?”

  “You worry too much. You never do anything without thinking about the worst thing that can happen.” She looked out the window as I found a station tracking Jackson’s Hold Out album.

  When they reached “That Girl Could Sing,” Karin looked at me. “How about something . . . for your birthday?” The way she said it was breathy and out of character.

  I felt my face flush.

  “You agree to open this and share a glass with me, and I’ll give you a little present. Our first kiss.” She raised an eyebrow and pursed her lips. “Ready to pucker up, farm boy?”

  Blood raced through my body, and I felt a sense of urgency. Just breathe, I thought. The car was suddenly hot, and I rolled down my window. I had no idea where we were going, but I knew I had to keep driving. “All right, we’ll have one glass each, but that’s it. And not while we’re on the road.”

  “Fine,” Karin said. “Pull off at the next exit.”

  A few miles later we snaked up a winding off-ramp. Mosquitoes and other bugs splattered the windshield. I hit the windshield washer fluid to erase the stains, but it just smeared. We reached a light at the top of the hill, and the county road was deserted. I didn’t know if we were in Kentucky or Ohio. “Right or left?”

  “Surprise me,” she said.

  I turned left and we quickly escaped the harsh lights of the interstate. The road rose above the homes that lay below us on the ridge. It reminded me of our own area—newer homes with long driveways and ivy-covered brick walls mixed in with trailers and run-down homes. Cars propped on cinder blocks. We passed a Kroger and a gas station, and I started to turn into a wide spot in the road sporting a picnic table.

  Karin touched my arm, pointing at a blue sign that said Swimming Pool. “Keep going.”

  We drove another mile and the hills dropped on one side, revealing a flat plain bathed in moonlight.

  “Turn here,” she said.

  It was the entrance to a high school. The brick building was older, and the grass needed mowing. Four dilapidated tennis courts, laid out east to west, stood at the end of a long parking lot, a high chain-link fence around it. A baseball field and a cinder track in the distance. I didn’t see a football field, but I knew there had to be
one.

  “Go over there,” Karin said, motioning to a small building with another fence connected to it.

  I drove slowly, as if someone from the school might jump out, but the place was deserted. The trash can near the building was full of soda cans and paper plates. The familiar smell of chlorine wafted through the area, but the temperature remained hot and muggy.

  “I’ve got an idea.” Karin grabbed the bottle and the glasses and opened the door. “Park at the tennis courts and meet me back here.”

  I tried to stop her, but she had made up her mind. I left the windows rolled down and parked, then followed her to the small building. The front had turnstiles and a large window covered with plywood. Above it was a sign listing the prices of hot dogs, sodas, and candy.

  “Hey, where are you?” I said.

  Karin was on the other side of the building, trying to scale the fence.

  “There’s barbed wire at the top,” I said. “You’ll cut yourself.”

  She stepped down, and I saw she had pushed the bottle and glasses through the bottom of the fence. There was no way we were getting in that way.

  “You have an old blanket in the backseat, don’t you?”

  “It’s full of dust,” I said.

  “Get it.”

  Her eyes twinkled a fluorescent reflection of the security light above us, and her hair glistened. I thought myself the luckiest person on earth to be alone with her. And then she smiled and I thought of the Eagles song “Witchy Woman.”

  “Look, the cops probably patrol this place,” I said. “You try to get over that and the people in those houses up there will call.”