by Han Nolan
I spent those dark mornings doing a lot of reading and peering out the window now and then like I was waiting for something: the rain, or Daddy, or Mama—something. And that darkness scared me, being in the daytime and all. It reminded me of the story in the Bible about Jesus and how just before he died—hanging from the cross, nails in his hands and feet, a wound in his side and his head bleeding from the crown of thorns—darkness fell o'er all the land. Every time I looked out the window there it was, the darkness of Calvary.
Friday morning, soon after Sharalee left to put in her three hours bagging groceries at the Food World, and her mama left to cook lunch at the retirement village, and her papa set off for Birmingham, I heard someone's horn honk-honking down the road. I looked out the kitchen window into the gloom, expecting to see a parade, or a wedding party or something.
Instead I saw Mad Joe's truck careen into the drive and flash past the house. He screeched to a stop just beyond the end of the drive and parked under the big shade tree. I saw him stumble out of the truck and figured he was drunk.
He was drunk, and one of his daughters was dead. I knew that 'cause he was carrying the stick. It was just like when Granny Slim died and her son, poor as dust, came over to the Marshalls' wanting a pine box to put her in. He brought along a stick, too, pulled out of the woods and broken off till it was just the size of Granny Slim.
I saw Mad Joe do a fast shuffle over to the barn, and I hurried to the door and called out to him.
"He's not here today. He's gone to Birmingham."
Mad Joe turned around, swaying a little as he did, and then when his eyes focused on who I was, he called out, "Help me! Come here an' help me."
I ran out to him and put his arm around my shoulder, thinking he was needing me to help him walk or something.
"No." He pulled away. "I got to leave the measuring stick for my Vonnie."
"Lean it against the barn, then," I said. "I'm sure he'll understand."
Mad Joe turned around again and staggered toward the barn with his hands held out as if he were blind and searching for the way. He set his stick down, but he didn't let go of it. He bowed his head and mumbled something, and then I saw him kiss the stick. When he turned back around he had tears running down his face.
"I'm real sorry, Mad Joe," I said.
He looked up at me and said, "Come on to the truck."
I followed him.
"See." He pointed into the truck bed. "My Velita's dying. We got to save her."
I looked into the truck and saw Velita lying on a mattress and covered up to her chin with a sweat-soaked sheet. Her eyes were closed and she was pale, with sweat beaded up all over her face and her breath coming out in short puffs.
"Lord have mercy," was all I could say.
"Hop in and be wiping her with that sponge." He pointed to a bucket. "We're going t'your daddy."
"Lord have mercy," I said again, climbing into the back and drawing the sponge up out of the water. I sat down and squeezed it out some and then began wiping her face. The truck jerked back and then forward and then back, and we were on our way.
Thirty seconds later we were pulling into my own driveway and Mad Joe hardly took the time to stop the truck before stumbling out, this time with his shotgun in his hands.
I dropped the sponge into the bucket and stood up. "Hey, what are you fixin' to do?"
He pointed the gun at me. "You stay on with my Velita, you hear?"
"But what—"
"You hear? You don't come to the house." He lifted the gun higher.
My legs started to shake so, the whole truck was rocking. I sat back down and nodded.
"You keep sponging. You don't stop sponging."
I nodded again and turned to the bucket. I picked up the sponge and started wiping at Velita's face.
She opened her eyes and stared into my face.
"He's going to kill Daddy," I said. "He's got the shotgun."
Velita licked her lips and mumbled, "He won't do it."
I turned my head to look for Mad Joe and saw him fighting with the shotgun to get through the door.
"He's drunk and he's mad and he's wanting to save you. He'll do it, 'less I stop him."
I made a move to go and Velita's hand came up around my wrist. "Don't let Papa blame himself."
"No, I won't. I got to go."
She pulled on my arm. "Not everyone's meant to live till they're old. That's the natural way of things—God's way."
"Okay." I pulled away from her. She was too weak to hold me. I was climbing out, and she kept talking.
"Tell Papa. Tell Papa it's not his fault."
I hopped down off the truck and ran to the house.
I could hear Daddy quoting Scripture, and talking in his sermon voice, and Mad Joe was shouting over it.
"Who are you? Who are you to do this? My baby's dead! Her blood is on your hands an' I ain't a-leaving without I got the chair. I still got one I can save. I can save her! Now, you move. You move on, 'cause I have no fear of using this."
I ran down the hall screaming. I heard myself screaming. Screaming for Daddy to give him the chair.
Daddy looked up when I came into the kitchen, but Mad Joe, drunk as he may have been, stayed steady, facing Daddy, with his shotgun not more than a foot away from Daddy's head.
"Charity, it's okay. Now get out. Go on." Daddy's eyes shifted back to the end of the shotgun.
"Give him the chair. Daddy. Lordy, he's going to shoot you! So what if he's idol worshiping. Is it worth your life? Lord a'mighty, is it worth your life?"
"Git back to my Velita, girl." Mad Joe moved the shotgun closer to Daddy's head.
"Daddy?" I pleaded.
"Dying for the Lord's sake is the only way I'm wanting to go, for the way to the kingdom is the way of the cross. Now you go on back to Velita." He gestured with his hands, but he kept his eyes on the gun.
"But what about me? What about our family? If this is what the Lord's wanting, then I don't want Him. I don't want any part of Him. But, Daddy, it isn't! It isn't! We should be living for the Lord, not dying."
Mad Joe backed up, and I thought for a minute he was going to drop the gun. Instead he fixed it so it was set to blast the both of us. "My baby's dying. There's no time. Now, what you say 'bout your baby dying for the Lord? What you say now?"
It was only seconds before Daddy spoke, but it felt like forever, waiting to see if he was willing to sacrifice me to the Lord.
He lifted his head, his eyes focused on the ceiling. "Forgive me, Lord, but this I cannot do."
He spoke to Mad Joe. "I'll get you the chair, but when I do, you let Charity go."
Mad Joe waved the gun in our faces. "You get me the chair. You get the chair back to Miss Adrienne's, where it belongs, then we'll talk about mercy."
Daddy walked to the door, followed by me and then Mad Joe and his shotgun. We went up the pathway that led to the church like we were a family going to Sunday worship. Daddy took us through the back way, then into the sanctuary. We walked down the aisle and to the right, to the storage closet. He took his keys out of his pocket, and as he selected the one for the storage door and set it into the keyhole I saw Daddy's hands trembling, and I knew I loved him again, or maybe for the first time.
The procession to the truck was the same as before, with Daddy in the lead, then me, and then Mad Joe, only this time Daddy was carrying the chair.
"You set that in the back with Velita, and, Charity, you ride in there with her," Mad Joe said when we got to the truck. "Baby, your cure is coming, it sure is," he called over our heads with a hopeful voice.
Daddy lifted the chair into the bed and then turned around. He looked at me, and I knew he was signaling something; something was worrying him. Then he grabbed me and shifted me over so he was standing in front of Mad Joe, and he said, "Go on, Charity, climb in back. Hurry now."
I did as he said, and he climbed into the front seat, saying for Mad Joe to get moving.
I didn't understand the
change in him until we had gotten under way and I caught a look at Velita. She was dead. Her eyes were open and staring and her face was dry. Even the sheet covering her body was drying out. I drew in my breath and backed off as far from her body as I could get.
By the time we had pulled into Adrienne's drive, I was hunched into a tight ball in the corner of the truck.
Daddy jumped out first and ran around to get me.
"Get out. Come on. Get out and run."
"But when he sees—"
Daddy reached up and grabbed me, pulling me out of the truck while Mad Joe, hoisting up his shotgun, came around to the back.
"Run!" Daddy said, letting go of me. "Run!"
I glanced at Mad Joe catching sight of Velita and I couldn't move. I wanted to. I wanted to run. But I couldn't move.
"Baby! My baby's dead! Lord, Lord, my baby!" Mad Joe wailed. He turned to Daddy with tears streaming down his face. "Move the chair. Move the chair over her body. Go on, move the chair," he shouted at Daddy.
Daddy did as he said.
Mad Joe reached his free arm over the truck and stroked the chair, his eyes shifting from us to the chair and back to us. The shotgun was still aimed at Daddy. "Lord, You can make her live again. You can do it. I believe in Your miracles. I read what You done in the Bible. You raised that widow's son from the dead. Have compassion. Have compassion and do it again."
We all stood there. Watching. Waiting.
"Lord!" Mad Joe's voice shook. "Lord, I believe. Have mercy."
Daddy bowed his head and began mumbling a prayer, and Mad Joe, seeing him, got all fired-up furious.
"You get that chair. Go on. Take it out." He shoved the gun into Daddy's side, making him grunt.
Daddy lifted the chair.
"Now, you take it into the living room and you set it right where it s'posed to go."
Daddy looked at me hard. "Charity, you git. Do as I say!"
"I don't need her, just you now," said Mad Joe, poking the gun into Daddy again and again, forcing him to move forward.
I backed away. My whole body was shaking. Even my breath was coming out of me in trembling fits.
I watched Mad Joe push Daddy along, shouting out the orders, and Daddy marched forward, his voice calling out to the Lord in prayer.
Soon as I saw them turn the corner, heading for the back porch, I ran to the front door, slammed it open, and started screaming for Adrienne.
Adrienne came into the hallway from the kitchen. "Charity, what is it? What's going on?"
"Call the sheriff! Call him! Call him!"
I raced toward the kitchen and Adrienne followed, shouting at me that she didn't have a phone.
I stopped, turned around, and just stared at her, trying to take in what she had said. Then I pushed past her and headed for the living room, not knowing what I was going to do when I got there but knowing that I had to be there.
Just before I got to the entrance. Daddy came through the doorway and closed the door behind him.
"What's happened? What's he doing?" I asked.
"Praying."
"And he's not going to shoot you?"
Daddy shook his head. "It's over. We'll go call the sheriff."
I made a move toward him. I was going to hug him, 'cause it was all over, 'cause he was safe, but then we heard this sound like half the house had just exploded, and me and Daddy and Adrienne, without stopping to think, ran toward the noise still vibrating in our ears. We ran until we caught sight of the blood. Mad Joe's blood, spilling down the side of the chair.
25
Daddy tried to send me away. He called Mrs. Marshall to come get me and keep me at her house, but I wouldn't go, and the more he pushed the more hysterical I became. I wanted to be there. I wanted to see the medics take Velita and Mad Joe away in the ambulance. I wanted to see the sheriff and his people clean up the mess, 'cause I knew otherwise that scene would haunt me the rest of my days. I needed that memory of them setting things right.
I waited with Daddy. We stood outside on the lawn under the black clouds, and I shivered in the heat and humidity as if I were running a fever, and I coughed and my nose ran and my throat hurt as if I had a cold. Daddy rubbed my arms and spoke soothing words to me, but I wouldn't hear them.
They carried Mad Joe out in a body bag, like he was just a sack of garbage needing to be set out by the road. They lowered Velita down off the truck on a stretcher with her own sheet pulled up over her face. They were walking her to the ambulance and I ran out to her before Daddy could hold me back. I walked alongside her and spoke to her, like she could hear me. I needed to believe she could hear me.
"There wasn't time to tell your papa," I said. "But you can tell him. Tell him it wasn't his fault. None of it was his fault."
After the sheriff questioned us and the ambulance rode screaming down the street, Daddy led me through the house to the living room, where a couple of men and a woman were finishing the cleanup. The Jesus chair stood off to the corner with a sheet draped over it as if it were another dead body. I cried as if it were.
I told Daddy I wanted to come home that night, and we walked back through the fields together, not talking. And the clouds burst open and the rain came down in heavy sheets, and we kept walking, walking slowly through the fields.
26
Soon as we got home. Daddy changed out of his wet clothes, asked if I was going to be all right, and when I said yes, he left and went over to the church. And there's where he stayed. I tried to get him to come on home for supper and then again for bed, but he refused to stop his praying and come out, not even for meals or sleep. Not for anything.
I don't think he thought about how folks would be dropping by all evening, but he should have. In this town, soon as there's word about a death, folks set to baking up goodies and tossing together casseroles to bring to the mourning relatives. Problem was, in this case there weren't any relatives left, so all night long folks were coming to our house in the pouring rain, wanting to know where they should set the food.
I stashed all Mama's kitchen birdcages in cabinets and closets and told folks they could just set their Tupperware down on the counters.
And every one of them had to ask me; they wanted to know what had happened. And I answered the same things over and over and none of it reached me, none of it touched me, I was too numb and too tired. "Yes," I said, "I was there," and "yes, it was just awful," and "No, I'm just fine," and "Thank you for your concern," and "Daddy's over praying at the church." Again and again, the same old thing, "Daddy's over praying at the church."
When Miss Tuney Mae arrived round about ten at night and saw how tired me and Grace were, she patted my arm and nodded, saying how it was best to keep busy.
"That's right," she said. "Just keep moving, don't give yourself any kind of time to think. Just plain wear yourself out with busyness, so when your head hits that pillow at night you'll sleep straight off. 'Cause, honey pie, you don't want to be lying in the dark thinking on this day all over again."
She was right, and when I went up to bed that night I fell right off to sleep—but I couldn't keep myself from dreaming. The dreams were tinted in red, like I was looking at everything through rose-colored glasses, only what I was seeing wasn't rosy. That day, that horrible day, swirled through each scene like a whirlpool that sucked at me, pulling me in, right into its center, and try as I might I could never climb out. I just went round and round, staring into the dead faces of Vonnie and Velita and Mad Joe.
The funeral was set for Monday. I called Thomson's Funeral Home myself Saturday morning, and Mr. Marshall prepared three of the finest coffins he had and took, them over to the parlor. Mad Joe and his daughters were going to be buried beside Datina in our graveyard, and thinking of them resting for all eternity just below my bedroom window set my stomach to churning. The grief feeling was starting to flow back in me, and I was preferring the numbness.
I tried again to get Daddy to come back to the house, but he wouldn't even talk to me.
He just kept praying, lying facedown on the floor with his arms stretched out to the sides and his Bible by his head. I left him some of the food folks had brought by and returned to the house to clean up.
I slammed around in the kitchen, putting all the leftovers away and blaming everybody I could think of for the incident—Adrienne, Daddy, Mad Joe, Mama, anybody—so I wouldn't have to stop and think on how much of it was really my fault.
I was wrapping one more pecan pie in Saran Wrap and talking to myself about who was to blame when I heard a knock on the kitchen door. I looked up and saw Adrienne standing there under her umbrella, bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet, waiting to be let in.
I wiped my hands on my shorts and went to open the door for her.
She rushed in and I closed the door behind her, noticing a taxi setting out in our drive.
Adrienne folded her umbrella and took it to the sink. "My God, when it rains in the country, it rains, doesn't it? Everything's turned to mud. I wouldn't be surprised if the whole town didn't slide into the Gulf."
She was talking and shaking her umbrella in the sink while I was looking her over. She was wearing a suit, a tailored suit, with a scarf and a pin and earrings, and her hair all done up and lots of makeup. She looked like a model. She was even wearing shoes, high-heeled shoes.
She stopped her flow of talk and smiled at me. I don't think I smiled back. Her face got all red and she turned toward the sink and her umbrella.
"I've come to say good-bye. I'm going to Paris. I have another show there."
"Oh, it sounds marvelous," I said, and she looked at me like she was trying to see if I was being sarcastic.
