by Ronald Kidd
When we finally drove up to the house, Janette ran out to meet us. Little Joe, hair flying every which way, was right behind.
“Daddy!” cried Janette when A.P. got out of the car.
“Hello, darlin’,” he said, accepting her hug.
Janette greeted Esley and smiled nervously at me. She was joined by Sue Dean, who picked up Joe. I wanted to touch her, but the best I could do was reach out and stroke Joe’s cheek.
“Stop it!” he cried.
So much for reunions.
As we got our bags from the car, Gladys came through the door with Sara, who was wiping her hands on a dish towel.
“How’d it go?” Sara asked A.P.
He kissed her cheek awkwardly. “Got some songs for you. We’ll work on them this week. Recording session coming up, you know.”
Sara phoned Maybelle, and she came for supper with Eck and the children. I was happy to be included, like part of a family. I didn’t say much at supper—just watched as Sue Dean ate, Sara and Maybelle chatted, Eck joked, and the children pestered Esley for stories. Sue Dean glanced over at me, but when I caught her eye, she looked away.
A.P. gulped down the last of his supper and moved to the sofa, where he arranged some scraps of paper beside him. Esley got his guitar and sat in a chair nearby. Picking out one of the papers, A.P. handed it to Esley.
“Got this song in Kingsport,” he said.
Esley nodded. “I remember the tune.”
He strummed a few chords, then picked out a melody. Sara came over and looked at the paper. While Esley picked, she sang, haltingly at first, then with more confidence.
Everybody’s got to walk this lonesome valley
We’ve got to walk it by ourselves
There’s nobody here can walk it for us
We’ve got to walk it by ourselves
Sara’s sweet, pure voice floated across the room, brightening it like a candle.
My father’s got to walk this lonesome valley
He’s got to walk it by himself
There’s nobody here can walk it for him
He’s got to walk it by himself
Afterward, I found Sue Dean on the front porch, rocking in the swing and looking at the stars. I sat down beside her.
I said, “You ever feel lonesome? Like in the song?”
“Sometimes.”
“I’ve been thinking about my father,” I said.
I told her what I’d learned, about the young man who sang his heart out and looked like me.
“Your father?” she said. “How could that be?”
“I don’t know. But I need to. I’m going back to Bristol.”
“To stay?”
I shook my head. “To find out.”
The crickets chirped. The swing creaked as we rocked.
“Would you come with me?” I asked.
She looked away. “I have work to do here.”
“Just for a few days. You could ask.”
“Why would I do that?”
We swung for a little while longer. Then she got up and went inside. The swing seemed empty. I felt lonely again.
A few minutes later, she came back. “I talked to Sara. It’s okay.”
“You’ll come?”
“Don’t get any ideas,” she said.
CHAPTER 43
The next morning at breakfast, I told A.P. that I’d like a few days off.
“I need to take care of some things,” I said.
A.P., buttering a biscuit, barely looked up. “Sary told me. Esley and I are staying here, fixing up songs, so I guess we won’t need a mechanic for a little while.”
“Or a car,” volunteered Esley. “What do you say, Doc? Could he take yours?”
A.P. shrugged. “Don’t see why not.”
I’d been planning to ride the rails again, but having Sue Dean on the trip had complicated things. Now, suddenly, it would be simple.
We packed a few things and headed out later that morning. I felt good driving the car by myself, and even better having Sue Dean along. The car was like our own little world.
“What are you thinking?” she asked as we headed down the road.
“It’s sort of like the cabin,” I said. “Just you and me.”
She didn’t say anything. She just looked out the window. For me, the cabin was the two of us, heads together, listening to the crystal set. For her, it might be something different—a note, a goodbye never spoken.
We drove west along the base of the mountains, then turned south. After a while we joined up with Highway 11, which took us through Abingdon and on into Bristol, from the Virginia side.
We arrived late that afternoon. The first thing we saw was the Bristol sign, bordered by electric lights. A good place to live, it said. Maybe it was for some. We drove down State Street, along the border that divided the town. It was just a line on a map, but it was real. I felt it.
I guided the car into the neighborhood where we had lived, past the cemetery and toward the vacant lot where the big yellow tent had stood. Some boys were using the lot to play baseball, yelling and kicking up dust. I pulled over, and we watched them for a minute. So much of my early life had taken place on that lot, but I didn’t claim to understand it. The boys didn’t care. They laughed and hit and ran the bases, trying to reach home.
Next to the vacant lot was the little white house where I’d grown up. The paint was fading, and the place seemed smaller. I parked in front. Sue Dean and I got out, went up the front walk, and knocked on the door. It swung open, and a boy stood there.
“Arnie?” I said.
I’d been gone just a few months, but he had changed. He was eleven years old, though looking at him you’d think he was older. His face was lined. His shoulders were hunched, and his hands were curled like claws. His energy and spirit, which Mama had wanted to bottle, were nowhere in sight.
He smiled, but it was more like a grimace. “Nate!” Stepping forward, he put his arms around me. They felt stiff and awkward.
Pulling away, I said, “You remember Sue Dean, don’t you?”
He eyed her warily. “I thought you left.”
“I did,” she said.
I asked Arnie, “Are you…okay?”
He glanced down at his hands and shrugged. “I look like an old crow.”
“What happened?”
“Beelzebub,” he said. “Like Daddy said, he won’t let you go.”
“The snake?”
Arnie nodded. “After you left, I started getting pains in my hands and arms. My shoulders drew up. My body ached. Doctor said it was the snake. Rattler bites can hurt for a long time.”
I remembered the day when Arnie had walked down the aisle with Beelzebub coiled around his neck. Once again I wondered what would drive anyone to do that. Whatever it was, Daddy had it and so did Arnie. Maybe it changed over time, the way Arnie’s body was changing—twisting up, curling in on itself.
He held the door open, and we stepped inside. Sniffing the air, I caught a whiff of floor wax and cornbread, along with the candles Mama lit before bedtime. It was the smell of my house, my family, my life from before. At the time, I’d barely noticed it, at least not any more than I’d noticed Daddy’s weird, shouted prayers or the way Arnie whimpered in the night.
Arnie led us into the kitchen, where Mama stood at the stove with her back to us.
“Who was it?” she called to Arnie.
“Hello, Mama,” I said.
Turning around, she launched herself at me, grabbing and holding on tight. When she pulled away and looked me over, her cheeks were wet.
“I wish I could have done that before you left,” she said. “You didn’t give me the chance.”
“If I did, I never would have gone. I needed to leave.”
“Where did you go?”
“It’s a long story.” I spotted potatoes and string beans on the stove. “Could I tell you over supper?”
Mama asked me to set the table as if I’d never left. Sue Dea
n helped. Halfway through, Daddy came in. He grabbed me too. Our family had its share of problems, but hugging had never been one of them. Daddy hugged me so tight I didn’t know if he had missed me or wanted to kill me.
I was all set to dive in to the mashed potatoes when Daddy took hold of my hand and I remembered. Before eating, we always clasped hands around the table and prayed—or rather, Daddy prayed.
This one was a doozy. It was your basic Prodigal Son theme, with some Children of Israel mixed in. It seemed that I had run off, staggered through the desert, spent time in a pigsty, then been welcomed home to eat the fatted calf, or in this case, cornbread and black-eyed peas. Daddy might not have a big audience anymore, but his pipeline to God was still open.
A week later, when the prayer ended, I took a gulp of sweet tea and told them what really had happened—no desert, no pigs, no food. Trains and the people who rode them. I described Bill and his band of angels. I told them about the jungle, leaving out the girl who stole my pack. I took them on a trip to Gate City and into the home of the woman named Dolly.
“What happened there?” asked Arnie.
I took a deep breath. I had come a long way, and I wasn’t about to stop.
“Music,” I said.
Daddy glanced up sharply. Arnie and Mama looked away.
“We don’t talk about that here,” said Daddy.
“Don’t you want to know what happened?” I asked.
Mama put her hand on his. “Let him talk, Wilvur.”
He lowered his head, and she nodded to me. I told about the Carter Family—how Sue Dean and I had met them in Bristol, how I’d heard their records at Dolly’s house, and how the records had drawn me to Poor Valley, where I’d found Sue Dean.
“We work for the Carters,” I told them proudly. “Sue Dean watches their children. I keep their car running. I’m a mechanic.”
Daddy looked up again. “That’s quite a story.”
“You haven’t heard the best part.”
He cocked his head, and I almost felt sorry for him.
“I went to a church in Kingsport,” I told him. “A man said he had heard you.”
“That’s good,” said Daddy.
“You weren’t preaching. He said you sang and played the banjo.”
CHAPTER 44
For a second I thought he might cry. Then his face hardened and he looked away.
I leaned forward. I felt electric, like the battery in A.P.’s Chevrolet. “The man said you were good. He called you God’s trumpet.”
“Blasphemy,” Daddy growled.
“Is it true?” asked Arnie. “What Nate heard? Mama, is it true?”
Mama was gazing at Daddy. She didn’t speak or move. She was a tuning fork, picking up Daddy’s moods and vibrating with them. Thinking back, it had always been like that.
I told him, “The man thought I was you. He said we looked just alike.”
Daddy just sat there.
“I love music,” I said. “So did you. What happened?”
Something in his eyes told me he had gone back. He was there, in a time before I was born, remembering what it had been like. I thought I might see happiness or pride. What I saw was pain.
Next to me, Sue Dean shifted in her chair. I had told her about my family, and now she was seeing it close up.
“Music is beautiful,” I said.
He muttered, “You’re stubborn. You always were.”
“It’s not a sin,” I told him.
He turned his gaze on me. His face was pale, drained of life. The look he gave me was so cold that it burned.
“You’re not welcome here.”
“Wilvur!” said Mama.
She took Daddy’s hand, and he pulled away.
“You can finish your supper,” he told me. “You can spend the night. But tomorrow morning, you need to go.”
Daddy got up, placed his napkin on the table, and walked out of the room.
***
I had trouble sleeping. I kept thinking about Daddy on that stage, singing. Daddy in the tent, preaching. Daddy gripping my head, praying. Daddy kissing me good night.
When I was little, before the tent or the snake, sometimes I’d have nightmares. If they were especially bad, I would tiptoe from my room, out the back door, and across the backyard to the shed. I’d tinker in the moonlight, fiddling with Daddy’s tools. It made me feel better.
I got up, pulled on a bathrobe, and went down the hall past Arnie’s room, past the room where Sue Dean was sleeping. I pushed open the back door.
The night was warm. The stars glittered. They had traveled with me along the rails and had followed me home. They seemed like friends, but they were as cold and stark as the look Daddy had given me.
I was halfway to the shed when I heard a voice. It was familiar but different, like a favorite portrait that’s been gripped in a fist, then used for a different purpose—to swat a child or kill a spider.
The voice was angry. It was rough and tortured. It had power. It wasn’t a trumpet. It was more like a drum or a thunder clap.
Daddy was singing.
Oh Death,
I prayed you wouldn’t call so soon.
I glimpse a face in the dark’ning sky,
A twisted grin, an eyeless eye,
A bony hand of purest white,
Who goes there in the black of night?
Do you not know? Well, listen then.
’Tis I who conquer sons of men,
And no one from my curse is free.
My name is Death, and time serves me.
I hone the blade. I plunge the knife.
I seize the thing you call your life.
I fire the gun. My aim is true.
Prepare yourself. I come for you.
Oh Death,
I prayed you wouldn’t call so soon.
I stood in the doorway of the shed, watching. I thought of the people in the graveyard across the street. They’d struggled, and death had won. Daddy was still fighting, but barely.
He finished, lowered his head, and stood there for a long time. He was crying.
I didn’t know him. Until I left home, I’d been with him nearly every day of my life, but the man standing in the shed was a stranger. I thought of all that I’d missed because of it. There’s a well deep inside of us. The water churns. Sometimes it’s clear and cold. Other times it’s muddy. It has a taste that only we know. I think Daddy’s well was deeper than most. I wondered what was at the bottom.
I must have moved, because he looked up and saw me.
“Get out,” he said.
“No.”
“You don’t belong here.”
“I’m your son. A man thought I was you.”
“I tried to teach you,” he said. “I never knew if I was getting through.”
“The good things did.”
His face filled with pain. “Music?”
“It’s important, Daddy. It’s beautiful. I believe in it.”
“Believe in God,” he said.
“Maybe it is God.”
He flinched. “Don’t say that.”
“It’s as close to God as we get. You used to think so, didn’t you?”
“I was young.”
“I heard you just now,” I said. “You still believe it.”
He sighed. “Twelve years. That’s how long it’s been.”
“Since you sang?”
“Since everything.”
There was a worktable off to one side of the room. Daddy’s toolbox was on top of it. Beside that was Beelzebub’s cage, empty now. Next to the table were a couple of stools. Daddy shuffled over and sat down on one. I took a seat next to him.
He stared. I wondered what he saw.
Finally, he said, “She was so pretty.”
“Sister?” I asked.
It was the subject he always returned to. I guess she was always there, just below the surface.
He nodded. “I used to hold her and rock her to sleep.”
“I barely remember her.”
“Her hair was curly. Her eyes were bright. She had a dimple by the corner of her mouth. But she got sick.”
“Typhoid fever,” I said.
“That’s right.”
He took a deep, ragged breath. I could tell it hurt, like he was breathing fire.
“I was gone,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
He spit out the words. “I was out of town. I was playing music.”
The world stopped. A door opened just a crack. I didn’t dare touch it for fear it would swing shut.
He said, “I had a band—guitar, fiddle, mandolin, bass. I played the banjo and sang. We lived in North Carolina but traveled all over. Did picnics, festivals, weddings. White, black, you name it.”
“Did you play at Kingsport?”
“Many times. By the time Sister came along, I’d been singing for years. Started when I was your age, like the man said.”
He looked away, and I could tell he was back there. “I married your mama after high school. Kept singing. Sister came along. Kept singing. Sister got sick—fever, pain, a bad cough. Kept singing.
“The band was booked at a county fair in Raleigh that weekend. I could have stayed home with Sister, but I didn’t. I wanted to play music. I loved it. I loved it too much.
“We played so well at the fair. I sang better than ever. When I got home, Sister was dead. They said before she passed, she was asking for me. But I wasn’t there. I left her because of music. And I knew right then, the only thing that could keep me from my daughter was the devil. Satan did it. It was his music. So I put down my banjo and never played it again. I dedicated my voice to God—not to sing, but to preach.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this?” I asked.
“You didn’t need to know.”
“Yes, I did.” Listening to him sing had made me ache. “You shouldn’t have kept it from us.”
“I was afraid to tell you, because I thought you might take up music. I guess I was right.”
I looked back at where he had stood a few moments before, calling out to death, ripping the scab off an old wound.
I asked, “What was that you were singing?”
