The Risen

by Ron Rash

  I’m still on the porch when a man opens the door. He tells me the house is open if I wish to come in. I shake my head. That afternoon I’d visited here with my mother, a summer thunderstorm had come up and we’d waited on this porch until the rain and thunder ceased. She knew I wanted to be a writer and while we waited she’d turned to me.

  “Isn’t it amazing how you can go up to that room and see where Wolfe’s brother died and then you can read about Ben’s death in the book, dead in both life and in the book; and yet every time I reread and hear Ben’s voice, he’s every bit as alive as before, and a part of me thinks this time maybe Ben won’t die, and it hurts as much as the first time when he does.”

  I’d told my mother that I could understand that.

  “I know you do, Eugene, and I know that you feel things as deeply in real life, and that can be hard, but look at it as a gift too. It makes us more fully alive, more human.” My mother had paused. “The morning Bill left for Wake Forest, I told him that, if he were you, I would talk about how it was natural to feel homesick and lonely at first, even want to pack up and come back home, but that I didn’t need to feel that way about him. I was trying to reassure your brother that he’d do fine away from home, but instead, for a moment at least, I believe I hurt his feelings. But then he said, ‘Grandfather told me the same thing, so I’m certain I will be fine.’ And of course Bill was. Almost a month passed before he called home.”

  “THIS IS THE LAST TIME William’s getting beer and wine for us,” I told Ligeia the last weekend in July. “He says it’s not right, but I think it’s because I can outdrink him. He can’t stand not being the best at anything.”

  “What a jerk,” Ligeia said.

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “He’s not drinking even one beer?” she asked, nodding at the plastic rings that held two beers as I pulled the tab off my fourth.

  “No.”

  “If you have ten bucks I can score us some whiskey. Angie knows a bootlegger.”

  “I’ve got that much in my wallet,” I answered. “I’ll get it out of the truck before we leave.”

  “Good,” she said. “You ever drunk whiskey before?”

  “No.”

  “You’ll live it, I mean love it,” Ligeia said, and giggled. “Damn, it makes a difference taking three Quaaludes at once instead of two. Anyway, you’ll get loaded quicker and you’ll feel it sliding all the way down to your stomach.”

  “Sounds good,” I said, holding up my can. “Three of these hardly give me a buzz anymore.”

  “Next time I’ll bring that joint I promised you.”

  “Groovy,” I said, trying to say the word without any hick accent. “How come you never smoke pot when you’re here?”

  “I don’t need it with the downers and wine,” Ligeia said. “I save the pot for other times.”

  She closed her eyes.

  “Groovin’ on a Sunday afternoon,” she said, “right?”

  “Right, groovin’.”

  “But not your brother.”

  “No,” I answered. “He’s still bitching about how loud my radio is. Says he can’t concentrate. I told him to go buy some Geritol and earplugs and shut the fuck up.”

  She laughed.

  “You really said that to him?”

  “Pretty much,” I said, “and guess what? Wednesday night I finally heard ‘White Rabbit.’”

  “It’s the hippest song ever, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah,” I said, propping up on an elbow, “and one by Moby Grape, though I didn’t catch the title, and this new group, the Steve Miller Band. Have you heard them?”

  “No, babe,” Ligeia said, smiling drowsily. “You’re going to be hipper than me before long. I bet you’re already the coolest guy in this county, and once you start smoking pot . . . I bet you’ll be trading in that pickup for a minibus by the time school starts.”

  Eyes still shut, Ligeia’s hand found my forearm, lightly stroked the hairs with her index finger.

  “Your mermaid needs a favor.”

  “What is it?”

  “I need you to get me some uppers.”

  “You said you didn’t like those.”

  “I don’t, but other people do. I need some extra bread.”

  I looked through the foliage and caught a glimpse of Bill sitting by the big pool.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea. If you sell the samples, people could figure out where they came from. And Grandfather, he’ll know if I take too much at one time.”

  “Six or eight tablets,” Ligeia said, still stroking my arm. “Dexedrine or Desoxyn, okay? I’ll take them out of the packets first. Hey, you know I’d do it for you. With a little help from our friends, that’s how we all get by, right?”

  “All right,” I answered after a few moments.

  “That’s my babe,” she said, and lay on her back again. “Thanks, Eugene, I mean it.”

  After a fourth beer, my worries began fading, and by the sixth, having taken some long swallows of Strawberry Hill, I was, for the first time, indisputably knee-walking drunk. The suffusing glow freed something inside me. Freed, though perhaps summoned is a more honest word. As I staggered upstream to get my wallet, Bill still sat by the pool. He looks lonely, I thought, and that’s a new feeling for him, like no longer being Grandfather’s golden boy. And I’m glad he feels it.

  When Bill saw me he headed to the truck too.

  “Back in a minute,” I slurred as I took the ten from my billfold.

  “What are you doing with the money?” Bill asked, but I ignored him and went on to the creek and gave Ligeia the ten.

  “Don’t forget the speed,” she said, “as much as you can get, babe.”

  “And lions and tigers and bears, oh my,” I giggled as she waded across the creek.

  I fell twice before I got to the truck. As I came out of the laurel, I grinned at Bill.

  “Lions and big brothers and bears, oh my,” I said, and laughed so hard I fell again.

  On the drive back, Bill didn’t speak. Not that I gave him much chance to. I had the radio blasting, switching between top-forty stations for rock songs, banging the dash and singing along when I found “Light My Fire.” We were nearly home when Bill turned into the post office lot and turned off the radio. He pulled a roll of mints from his pocket, took one for himself, and tossed them to me.

  “Put the rest in your mouth, and sober up quick.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  As I loudly crunched the mints, the bright taste of peppermint filled my mouth. Bill didn’t reach for the key. For some reason, the seriousness on his face brought to mind Elmer Fudd.

  “Ehhh, what’s up, doc?” I said, attempting a Bugs Bunny voice.

  “I’m going to tell you some things, for your own good,” Bill said. “This drinking, it’s getting out of hand, and I talked to Tanya again. Ligeia didn’t just use drugs, she got caught selling them. Prescription drugs, Eugene. That’s serious. She was damn lucky she wasn’t sent to reform school.”

  “So Ligeia’s suddenly the worst person in the world.”

  “I’m not saying that, Eugene,” my brother answered. “From what Tanya says, Ligeia’s had it damn tough growing up. Her dad’s never been able to keep a job and her mom sounds like a first-rate bitch. But that doesn’t change the fact that she’s gotten into serious trouble, and with people who weren’t your age, or mine either. The guy she got arrested with was thirty.”

  “So you’re saying what, William, that she couldn’t like someone my age?”

  “No, I just don’t want you to get too involved with someone who could get you into serious trouble.”

  “You weren’t worried about that in June.”

  “I didn’t know as much then,” Bill said. “If I had, I wouldn’t have let us get involved with her in the first place.”

  “You can’t stand it, can you?” I said.

  “Stand what?”

  “That Ligeia likes me, not you, that she doesn’t
give a damn about you having a letter jacket or planning to be a doctor.”

  “It’s not about that at all, Eugene.”

  “I think it is.”

  My stomach roiled and a surge of bile rose into my throat but I held it down. I let my tongue rub bits of peppermint off my teeth to help dim the taste.

  “I’m not taking you out there again,” Bill said.

  “Fine,” I answered. “I’ll take Mom’s car. Ligeia can get us whiskey, so I don’t need you to do a damn thing.”

  “You won’t take Mom’s car either.”

  “The hell I won’t,” I answered. “You can’t stop me.”

  “But Mom will if she knows why you’re going out there.”

  “And how much would you tell her about us being out there?” I replied. “You know, Bill, I can tell Leslie some things the next time she calls. I might beat you to the phone or maybe call Leslie myself, or write her a letter. Or maybe Ligeia and I can write a letter together. Ligeia might even mention that compared to me you’re not even that good.”

  The truck’s engine idled. I felt the vibration in the soles of my shoes. I knew my brother was waiting for me to tell him, Hey, I’m just kidding about Leslie, or maybe say that he was right and I shouldn’t go to Panther Creek anymore. But I didn’t say a word.

  “Okay.” Bill sighed. “But if you drive out there, you know you can’t drink as much. If you were to get caught driving drunk . . .”

  “Yeah, yeah, but just because you don’t want a good time doesn’t mean I can’t have one, and that goes for Ligeia too, because I’m not afraid to get her what she likes.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Bill asked.

  “Nothing,” I said, realizing my mistake even in the alcohol haze. “I give her beads and stuff, and she likes them. That’s all I mean.”

  I switched on the radio and turned up the volume. Bill waited a few more moments and then put the truck in gear. We drove on through town to the house. As we pulled into the driveway, he reached for my arm.

  “You wouldn’t do that, call Leslie or write her,” he asked, “or let Ligeia know her address?”

  “No, but like Ligeia says, I’m a lot better at screwing than you. That’s something you’d better not let Leslie know, else she might decide to sleep on the couch with me next time she’s here.”

  That will do it, I told myself as Bill’s knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. Pain isn’t so intense when you’re drunk. That was my second thought.

  “You’re drunk,” he said. “If you weren’t . . .”

  Bill got out of the truck and slammed the door. He didn’t go into the house but started walking toward town. Afraid of what he might do to me if he lost control, or what I might do to him.

  My mother was in the kitchen but I went straight to my bedroom, locked the door, and lay down, the bed wavering like a compass needle. When it finally steadied, I lay on my back and grinned at the ceiling. Then I spoke my thoughts out loud: My brother is jealous of me. My brother is afraid of me.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I take a left on Walnut Street, knowing this way I’ll come to a coffee shop before a bar. My waitress wears the piercings and tattoos that are de rigueur for servers in Asheville. I face the window and sip my coffee, after a while order a sandwich. I’ve whittled an hour off my wait before I leave and walk to Pritchard Park. I watch a few not-so-covert drug deals, the drift of the homeless from one park corner to another, never venturing beyond. They resemble birds I saw once in a zoo, their only cage surrounding darkness, though here the darkness comes from within.

  The long-term drunks are easily spotted—the gray-clay look of the drowned, short thin-ice steps learned from too many slips and falls. I guess which have a college education, once-promising careers. I pick out several, one because of his posture, another who acts ashamed he’s here, and a third, who glares back at me contemptuously. I know your story too, his eyes seem to say, and I find it tedious.

  Six months before the wreck, I was charged with drunk driving while returning from a bar in Waynesville. I’d worked out a ritual so as not to get caught—order a sixteen-ounce coffee with my last drink, to be more alert but also to cloak the whiskey. Chewing gum was a tip-off. The most important thing was to offset the alcohol by driving five miles under the speed limit, slower but not slow enough to draw attention. No radio or CD playing either. I focused between the center and roadside lines and looked at nothing else. It had worked until a traffic stop one night. The trooper asked me to take a Breathalyzer test and when I refused, a roadside test, which I thought, wrongly, I could pass.

  Kay had called Bill and he’d paid my bail and brought me home. The three of us talked at the kitchen table while Sarah slept in her bedroom. An “intervention,” that was the term just starting to be used for such conversations. Bill suggested AA meetings and Kay agreed. An overreaction, I argued, but promised no more drinking and driving and no more alcohol on weekdays. If it happens again, Kay said, Sarah and I are leaving.

  So I’d learned my lesson. I drank at home and only on weekends, though weekends soon included Thursday and Sunday nights. One such evening Sarah was at a school play rehearsal. The director was sick and ended practice after thirty minutes. Kay’s Sierra Club meeting wouldn’t be finished until eight thirty. “I’m outside and it’s cold, Dad,” Sarah had complained. I got there fine, but Sarah wanted to talk about the play on the ride back. Maybe that was the difference, because a mile from home I didn’t stay between the lines.

  I only dislocated my shoulder, but Sarah’s forehead was cut and her leg so badly broken a trooper blanched when he saw it. I watched as the medics inflated a plastic brace around the leg and carefully laid her onto a gurney. I told them to take her to Mission in Asheville, not Waynesville, and to have the hospital contact Dr. Matney. I kept demanding it even as the trooper snapped handcuffs on my wrists.

  “You look like you might need something,” a voice says.

  A long-haired young man, probably still in his twenties, has left the park and sidled up beside me. Despite the day’s warmth he wears a camo jacket. He opens the pocket closest to me and I see an amber-tinted prescription vial.

  “No, thanks,” I answer.

  I turn and walk down to Malaprop’s, browse the shelves to kill some time. I see a nice new edition of You Can’t Go Home Again and open it, but I can’t focus enough to make the splotches of ink have any meaning, so return the book to the shelf and walk back down Walnut Street. When I come to the Wolfe house, I step onto the porch and sit in one of the rocking chairs. I think of Thomas Wolfe and how he would have witnessed his older brother’s body being brought onto this porch and down the steps. I wonder how Wolfe’s portrait would differ if Ben had lived. What negative traits, so present in portrayals of his other siblings, might he have added?

  I try to recall more about that late-September evening when my brother returned. He took a shower, but was it a long shower? Was there a residue of dirt, perhaps blood, on the shower tile or bathroom sink? And the next morning, scratches on his hands or neck if not on his face? What of Bill’s pocketknife? Had it been replaced or “lost”? But if I’d once noticed such things, nothing remains. Nothing but remains, according to the newspaper. Such appalling blankness in that word; even bones allows some visual connection, something that at least can be imagined.

  I TAKE THE ROUNDABOUT way back to Bill’s office. It’s a sunny day, so the street musicians are out, playing with varying degrees of competence everything from Earl Scruggs to Mozart. As I come up Church Street I pass a vintage record store. Music from Asheville’s classic rock station plays inside. Some memories are heard before envisioned, so I sit on a bench and listen. The first song is too recent for me to recognize, then “Black Water” by the Doobie Brothers. It is the third song that triggers memory, not of Bill but of the afternoon Ligeia brought the joint.

  “Hold the smoke in as long as you can,” she’d said, and handed it to me.

  I did what she
said, trying not to cough. I drank from the pint of whiskey, one burn following another.

  “Deep, babe,” she said.

  I took three more draws. Ligeia rubbed the ash off with a finger and relit what was left.

  “Open your mouth,” she said, and raised the joint, inhaled, then leaned so the smoke passed into my mouth. I held it in as long as I could and exhaled, the gray-white smoke suspended between us briefly before dissipating.

  “That should get you off,” Ligeia said, and nodded at the Quaalude and Dexedrine packets. “Thanks for getting all that for me.”

  She swallowed some whiskey and grimaced.

  “It takes getting used to, doesn’t it?”

  “It’s not so bad,” I said, and, taking the bottle from her. I held the whiskey in my mouth a few moments and then swallowed. “Where does the bootlegger live?”

  “You’ll dig this,” Ligeia said. “He’s on the same road as the church Angie and me go to.”

  “Norman West Road?”

  “Yeah, it’s on the left, just a few houses before you get to the church. There’s a silver horse trailer in the side yard.”

  “I’ll get the whiskey next time,” I said.

  “And more of these?” Ligeia asked, nodding at the Dexedrine packets.

  “Maybe I can get a couple,” I answered, “but the Quaaludes and Valium, if I take any more of those . . .”

  “Look for Librium then. It’s downer too.”

  “All right,” I answered.

  “School starts two weeks from Monday, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good,” Ligeia said. “I never thought I’d get my kicks at school but I’ll be freer there than at Uncle Hiram’s place. Aunt Cazzie hardly leaves the house except to buy groceries. I’m out in the barn every day, smoking up my profits, just to keep from going completely nuts. Speaking of which, do you feel that pot buzz yet?”