William scratched his head. “My brother held up a Coca-Cola truck.”
Polly covered her mouth with the book.
“The gun was unloaded. It was a prank. He wanted to make his own cola.” William eyed the flask bulge in her sweater pocket. “At least that’s what we’ve surmised.”
“Your brother sounds like quite the character.”
“Yes,” William said. “Unfortunately he is.”
“Why unfortunately?”
“It’s just that Johnny often does things to get attention and it works. For him, it works.”
“And for you it doesn’t?”
“I don’t go out of my way to do anything that garners attention.”
“Perhaps you should.”
“Like what?”
She shook her head as if he’d disappointed her somehow. “Oh, William. You’re quite the character yourself.” They watched each other for a moment. Their breath mingled in a wispy cloud between them.
“Do you really think Asher Keating will rise from the dead? Do you really think . . . I mean . . .”
Her face had gone slack. “The fact that you added the word really implies you think I’m a lunatic.”
“What? No, no, not at all . . .”
“And don’t think I haven’t noticed you look at the flask in my pocket. You’re judging me.”
“Possibly, a bit. But not in that way. Why do you have the flask?”
“Why does anyone carry a flask, William McFee?” She folded her arms under her breasts. “Learn to ask questions in a way that doesn’t offend. Ask me again without that word.”
“Do you think Asher Keating will rise from the dead?”
“You see, now that’s a strong question.” She tucked a strand of red hair behind her ear. “Is this on or off the record?”
My lands, she is pretty. “Off. On. I don’t know. What do you want it to be?”
“Off, or I wouldn’t have asked.”
“Okay, it’s off the record then.”
“Then yes, I believe he will rise from the dead.” She watched him closely. “You look disappointed. Why?”
“You’re just so . . . well spoken. And intelligent.”
“Implying I should be jingle-brained and dumb?”
“No.” It’s as if she can read my mind.
“Do I think Asher Keating will emerge from the soil and walk away? No, I don’t. Not in the physical sense. But I do believe we will witness some kind of spiritual awakening. It is his spirit that will rise. Does that make you feel more comfortable?”
“Yes,” he said softly, not confident it was the proper response. He wanted to ask her more questions, but he’d already unintentionally questioned her intelligence and implied that she was a drunk. It was exactly why he had yet to have a first kiss. He was a buffoon. And now he was beading up as if it were a hundred degrees outside.
“You’re sweating.” She stated the obvious.
“No, I’m not.”
“You most certainly are. Profusely.”
She grinned, and for a moment he hated her for it.
“And your face is red as an apple.” Then she surprised him. She tiptoed and sweetly pecked his right cheek. “Thanks again for the book.” She winked. “Good night, William.”
William smiled dumbly. “Good night, Polly.”
His right cheek was wet from her touch. He would sleep on his left cheek that night so as not to wipe it off.
SEVEN
Breakfast was quiet the next morning. Barley was passed out in his chair, and Samantha was overly melancholy. She placed William and Annie’s bacon and eggs on the table and left them alone to eat while she did dishes in the kitchen.
William ate with Annie as sunlight carved the dining room table in half. Neither spoke; only the sound of their chewing filled the void. William finished his last piece of bacon and wiped his mouth on the top of his hand, something he wouldn’t have done had Samantha been in the room, and Annie did the same thing. If anything good could come from tragedy, it was this: he and Annie had bonded. He’d decided that any mistakes he’d made with Henry would be made right with Annie.
They heard someone singing; an angelic voice was coming from the woods. It was too beautiful to be real. William hurried to the window with Annie beside him. Beyond the potter’s field Polly sat with her back to one of the whiskey trees, her head tilted upward as if singing to the birds. The timbre of her voice gave him chills.
“‘Conservati fedele.’” Awed, Samantha joined William and Annie.
William looked over his shoulder. “You know it?”
“It’s a Mozart aria. He composed it when he was nine. What a lovely soprano voice.”
Johnny spent one night in the Twisted Tree jailhouse. He did his time with “three drunkards, a dope fiend, a dip, and a boob who’d taken a hammer to his wife.” He’d had his own cell, but it was right across from the wife-beater, who’d spent all night spitting his fingernails to the floor and asking Johnny if he was Barley McFee’s boy.
The charges had been dropped with cash payment and return of the stolen bottles, but Johnny was still clammy looking as he sat next to William on the barrel run that next afternoon. Leaves skittered across the bricked walkways. The air carried a touch of the angels’ share. The twelve squatters had been in and out of the aging house all morning, paying visits to the outhouse, taking in the beauty of the whiskey trees and the influx of deer gathering beneath the boughs, but mostly they went out to pray at the grave site.
“Do you believe it?” Johnny asked.
William had just finished telling him the story of Asher Keating healing Thomas of his tuberculosis. “I shouldn’t, but I think I do.”
“Because of her?” He meant Polly; William had confided in his brother that he’d smelled corn whiskey on her breath.
William paused at the truth of it. The touch of her lips had faded from his cheek but not from his memory.
“So she has a voice like an angel?” Johnny prodded.
William nodded. “But she seemed bashful once she saw us watching.”
“And she kissed you on the cheek? She could carry a torch for you, brother.”
“You think?”
“Are you too jingle-brained to know when a bee wants to sting?”
William glowed in the sunlight. He’d hoped as much, but hearing Johnny say it made it more concrete, more achievable.
“I can’t remember what he looked like.”
“What who looked like?” asked William.
“Henry. Once a day I go into his bedroom to look at the picture on his dresser. You know, just to remind myself. I saw him every day of his life and I can’t remember what he looked like without seeing his picture.” Johnny had his eyes closed, like he was trying to remember Henry’s smile and dimples. “I think it’s my punishment for needling him so much. God made him blur.”
“He knows you loved him, Johnny.”
He bit his lip to fight the quiver. “But not like he loved you.”
One of the Twelve stood in the middle of the potter’s field, gazing up toward the sky as a couple dozen blackbirds circled.
Johnny said, “You know how Henry went through that spell with the nightmares? Crying to get into Mom and Dad’s room? After they locked their door, he snuck into my room at night. Slept in my bed. Did that for a good ten months. Flopped around like a fish out of water.”
“Did he tell you what his nightmares were about?”
“The Hash Man?”
William nodded. “That’s what Henry called him. Had crisscrossing scars on his face, like hash marks. I was surprised Henry knew what a hash mark was.”
“Nothing surprised me about Henry. You know? There was just something about him. Like everything was jake even when it wasn’t. He said something odd one night, after his nightmare. His nose was an inch from mine and it was clogged. ‘Sometimes the bad stuff gets in, Johnny.’ That’s what he said about the Hash Man. The way he looked at me, it was like he beli
eved the Hash Man was real. I said, ‘What do you mean, Henry? Sometimes the bad stuff gets into your dreams? Makes them nightmares?’ He said, ‘No, Johnny, it’s just who we are. Sometimes it’s just right. Sometimes there’s a little extra. Sometimes there’s not enough.’ He stared at me for the longest time without blinking,” Johnny said. “And then he said, ‘And sometimes the bad stuff gets in.’”
William remembered the intensity of Henry’s nightmares. They’d started several months before his death and occurred often enough to become an issue.
Johnny wasn’t finished. “I asked Henry how he knew about all that, you know, and he said something I’ve never been able to shake. He said, ‘He tells me.’”
“Who? The Hash Man?”
“I don’t know.” Johnny shrugged. “He didn’t say. But he smiled when he said that. And he was always scared of the Hash Man.”
They sat for a minute in the sun, watching the breeze blow crinkled leaves. Black-Tail made an appearance and then hustled away. William said, “You really thought you could make your own Coca-Cola?”
“Jeffrey Oppingham, up at school—”
“Jeffrey Oppingham is a boob.”
“Yeah, I know that now, but he swore to me that Coca-Cola was next.”
“Next for what?”
“Prohibition,” Johnny said, serious. “They took away liquor. He said now that it’s legal again, the government is gonna take away America’s second-favorite drink.”
“Real dumb, Johnny. But I’ve got to hand it to you. We tasted it. You got pretty darn close.”
“If they came down on cola, I wanted to be ready. I would’a made a fortune.” Johnny looked at the house. “You know, just like Dad.”
The click-clacking of William’s typewriter masked Barley’s snoring. He had paused in his writing when Barley mumbled something about Roosevelt’s New Deal, but that had only lasted thirty seconds before the snoring took over again. The sleep-talking was a behavior his father had brought back from the war. They’d become used to it, just as they’d been conditioned to his occasional zone-outs and his diving under the car every time fireworks started on the Fourth of July. William resumed typing notes about the arrival of Asher Keating and Thomas’s story. He could see through the bay window that the lights were on inside the aging house.
Annie’s leg braces scratched against the hardwood floor. She was playing with a nested set of Matryoshka dolls taken from France. Barley liked to say that Germany fought to control the world, Britain to control the seas, France to save their beautiful country, and the Americans for souvenirs. She carefully placed the baby doll inside the next size up.
William watched for a moment and then typed, Do they really believe that Asher Keating will rise from the dead tomorrow?
After rereading the question, he quickly went back to x out the word really. He was a slow learner.
Could Asher cure that man’s tuberculosis simply by putting his hands on him? According to the Bible, Jesus did similar things. At one time, were those stories not told in much the same way as Thomas’s story? All it requires is belief.
William stopped typing. God couldn’t have that much power. If He did, why did He let Henry die?
They all heard Johnny before they saw him. He had a way of running down the stairs as if the attic were on fire, then he slowed once he hit the first floor.
“It’s dark out,” Samantha said. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“Outside.” He held a lantern in his hand.
“To do what?”
He looked guilty, William thought, about something he’d done or was about to do.
“I dunno, get some fresh air.”
“Can I go with him?” Annie asked.
Barley grunted in his seat. “Rose Island,” he mumbled, slurring. “Don’t play with Teddy Roosevelt. Don’t bother the big black bear. Cross at the Devil’s Backbone . . .”
Johnny stepped outside and closed the door behind him.
William stared at his sleeping father. “What’s he talking about?” he asked his mother. “Rose Island and the Devil’s Backbone?”
Samantha helped Annie to her feet. “Come on, honey. Let’s go get cleaned up for bed.” And to William: “Keep an eye on your brother.”
William waited until they’d made it upstairs before walking outside to the porch. He didn’t need a light to see what Johnny was doing out in the middle of the potter’s field. The moonlight was shining directly on Asher Keating’s grave, as if it had been fired down in a beam from the purple sky.
Johnny was on his knees, hands folded in a triangle, praying.
At midnight Polly knocked on the glass panes of the back door. Barley was still asleep in his chair, and the shot of Old Forester William had downed after everyone else had gone to bed had left him light-headed. He was a little worried that each shot went down smoother than the one before it.
He unlocked the bolt and Polly slipped inside, brushing rainwater from the stiff sleeves of a black velvet coat that was too big for her. He’d been so focused on writing he hadn’t heard the rain.
“What’s that sound?” Polly removed her coat and handed it to William as if she’d been invited over for tea. “It sounds like a bear hibernating.”
“It’s my father snoring.”
She playfully slapped his arm.
She’s drunk. “Polly, is something the matter?”
“I refuse to go into that outhouse again.” She traipsed past William into the dining room, where she ran her index finger along the tabletop on her way into the living room. Barley coughed but never opened his eyes. His snoring resumed, louder now, which Polly thought humorous. She put her hand to her mouth to stymie her laughter.
“The bathroom.” William urged her along. “It’s just this way. Down the hall.”
Polly didn’t immediately follow. She picked up Barley’s fedora from the side table and placed it slanted on her disheveled red hair. She posed seductively with one hand on her hip. “How do I look, William?”
Like a babe. He reached for the fedora and placed it back on the table. She grabbed Barley’s booze for a quick nip. It was downright sexy the way she drank directly from the bottle, the way her pink lips puckered against the opening, the way her throat massaged the gulp.
William took the bottle from her as she stared at Barley as if he were an exotic zoo animal. He placed it next to the hat and clutched Polly by the elbow. The last thing he needed was for one of his parents to wake up and find her drunk inside the house.
Polly followed William to the restroom, where she stumbled giggling against the sink, attempted to kick the door closed with her heel, and then noisily sat down. She’d failed to close the door all the way, and for a moment William wrangled with the idea of closing it for her. Her clothes rustled and then she relieved herself for the longest time. How much liquid has she consumed? But then she flushed. Water ran in the sink. The towel rack squeaked on the wall as she rehung the towel, and then the door opened.
She looked more composed standing in the threshold, straightening her weathered dress. “I can’t tell you how long it’s been since I’ve used a toilet that nice. I almost didn’t want to get up from the seat.”
How long did it take for booze to leave the body? Maybe she’d emptied her bladder of it?
Polly brushed past William. Instead of moving back through the living room, she stopped at the stairwell. “Is your room up there? Which one is it?”
“Yes . . . the end of the hallway on the right, I suppose.”
“You suppose? Don’t you sleep in it?” Halfway up the stairwell she looked over her shoulder. “I’d like to see your room, William . . .” Her voice trailed away as she turned the corner.
He hurried up the stairs and turned right. Polly swerved toward his bedroom door and fumbled with the knob, making too much noise for his liking. He helped her inside and closed the door behind them. She turned on the floor lamp, took her coat from William, and hung it on the bedpost, ma
king herself at home. William’s heart pounded like a drum.
She sat on his bed, ladylike with hands folded on the lap of her dress. But that pose didn’t last long. She yawned and then stood to begin her survey of the room: the reading chair in the corner next to the window; his four pairs of shoes lining the far wall; the small table next to the bed atop which he emptied the contents of his pockets every evening before going to sleep—mostly change. “It’s so orderly in here, William.” Polly stopped beside his desk, on which were stacked papers and rows of pencils and pens. “I must say I’m impressed.” There was a vacant spot in the middle of the desk and she pointed.
“I sometimes carry my typewriter downstairs to write.”
“And how is your story going?”
“Well, I don’t have much as of yet.” He took a chance. “You could help with that.”
“You want to know about Asher?”
I want to know about you. “I do.”
She looked disappointed. “The world will learn about Asher Keating soon enough.” She ran an index finger across William’s desk and the tip came back with dust on it. She blew it off, and at that moment he nearly leaned in to kiss her on the lips.
And then Polly said, “I’m nineteen. And you’re twenty. And you’ve never been kissed.”
How does she know that?
“Your little sister is adorable. She stopped by this afternoon and told me all about you.”
It was silent for a moment. Maybe Annie and I have bonded too well.
“It’s a shame about her legs.”
“The doctor says there is hope for her. That she’ll walk like normal someday.”
“I’d be more inclined to put faith in the Lord for that,” Polly said. “I saw your brother praying at Asher’s grave earlier. Perhaps you should do more of the same.” She yawned again, covered her mouth.
“We heard you singing this morning. You have a beautiful voice.”
“Thank you. So Annie also told me you have a newspaper collection that dates back to the Middle Ages?”
“Not quite that far back.” William moved to the closet, showed her the stacked boxes of newspapers he’d collected since the end of the Great War. Thousands of papers neatly stored in fifteen boxes stacked high in three rows. He spoke with his back to her. “I’ve separated them by year, but some boxes are more specific. Anything to do with the war is in this one here. Oh, and this box is for anything to do with Prohibition.” He lowered his voice. “My father, he’s never told us what he did during the twenties, but . . .”
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