She owed her father her life, that’s what she thought. Her mama died the day she was born. “That old fool Dr. Trent told Herman Hathaway his wife was dead before he mentioned his daughter was alive,” Arlen told me. “When the poor man heard the baby wail, he thought she’d been born of a dead woman, and no amount of talk could convince him otherwise. He dressed her up so fine, in little wool capes with fur collars, pretty lacy dresses, and patent leather shoes. But he couldn’t bear to look at her—even in the end when she had to feed him from a spoon that old man didn’t look her in the eye.”
Minnie was only twenty when her father had his first stroke. He never spoke again. He didn’t speak but he lived. Fifteen years of silence. Fifteen years of blinks and grimaces. Fifteen years of bedpans and soiled sheets, and oatmeal dribbling down his chin.
I stared at Minnie Hathaway, looking for the girl she had been before she watched her father die so slowly. But that girl was gone; the face I saw was withered beyond salvation, withered even beyond the grace of love. I thought she’d done the right thing, staying with her father all those years, but I saw how she’d paid, and I was afraid.
These were my comrades, Lyla and Bo, Myron Evans and Minnie Hathaway, familiar people I did not know. Just being in their company made me think there must be hope for somebody like me. I wasn’t too far gone, not by comparison.
The lights flickered. A blast of cold air moved through the room like a parade of the dead. Freda Graves stood in the entryway, stomping snow off her boots. Her hands were bare, chapped and raw from the cold. She wore layers of scarves and shawls, dark and unwashed, tattered moth-eaten wool and frayed silk. She unwrapped herself quickly, leaving the last shawl draped around her shoulders.
I thought, the face of God himself could not be more fearsome. Her gray curls sprang from her head, thick and impenetrable. Only a steel pick could find its dark way through those unparted strands. Deer moss hanging in the forest was like silken threads next to the hair of Freda Graves. I was sure no smile had ever tainted her lips; no young girl’s brazen blush had risen on those bony cheeks; no summer light had ever broken in her eyes. Her eyes burned with the dark fires of redemption. Jesus might be kind, but God and Mrs. Graves were only merciful.
She glided to the center of the room and raised her hands. “Praise the Lord,” she said. “Let us bear our suffering on earth. Let us fall to the ground and thank God for testing us. Let us curve our backs to the whip and be grateful.” She whispered, “The closer you are to God, the more the devil wants you. You’ve got to look behind you.”
I resisted the temptation to glance over my shoulder to see if the devil hunkered down behind the sofa. Her words were strangely comforting to me: I was still so far from the Lord that the devil couldn’t possibly have any interest in snatching my soul, not yet.
“The devil loves attention. He doesn’t care if you worship him or curse his name. To the devil, it’s all the same. He hears you call and his pitiless heart pumps with pride just knowing he’s stolen our thoughts from the Lord. He prances on his goat legs; he sings from his frog throat. But we won’t utter his name. No, he won’t trumpet and dance in this room. But I warn you—the devil lies in wait for you, for all of you. The God you love will watch with idle hands while His evil brother tries to snare you. God only wants the purest hearts. An untried soul is an empty prize.
“One among us is tested even as I speak. One man in this room has the sweet fruit of evil pressed to his lips. Oh, do not bite that apple, brother. Let your body wither to the bone. The body’s life is short, but the soul suffers for all eternity.”
No one dared to look around the room. I could almost see the heat jumping off Bo Effinger’s skin, fierce and dry. Second by second, I grew more certain he was the one. I thought he’d have to crawl to Freda Graves’s feet and beg her to stop him from doing what he wanted to do to Lyla Leona.
But Bo Effinger’s soul was not the one Mrs. Graves saw perched on the shore of the lake of fire, not tonight. She turned and lit three candles on the table behind her. “Come to me, Elliot Foot,” she said. “Come and stand before the flames.”
Elliot rose like a man condemned. A runt in any litter, that’s what Aunt Arlen said, a scrawny little man with spectacles. His hair started halfway back his skull, and the unsteady light of the candles made shadows pass like clouds of remorse across the high curve of his forehead. Freda Graves beckoned, forgiving mother, brutal angel.
She stood behind her table and Elliot faced her. The row of candles flared. “Can you hold your hand in the flame?” she said, her voice soft as wind through grass.
Elliot pulled his wire-rims tight around his ears as if to remind her there were certain things you couldn’t do to a man wearing glasses.
She waited for an answer, but none came. “Elliot,” she said at last, “how close can you bring your finger to the fire?” He shoved his hands in his pockets and settled into himself, shrinking by the second, a boy with a beard.
Joanna Foot squinted so hard her eyes disappeared, and I feared her face might crack. She rocked back and forth, all two hundred pounds of her, silly Humpty Dumpty about to fall. Careful, I thought, careful—there’s too much of you to put together again.
“Give me your hands,” Mrs. Graves said. She clutched his fingers and pulled them toward the flames, closer and closer, ever so slowly, giving him time to struggle or plead. But the little man was proud. He let her have her way until his knuckles grazed the fire, until we heard a sizzle and smelled the hair burn off the backs of their hands. Elliot jerked free.
“Oh, the flesh is tender,” she said, “and the flesh is weak. You who cannot hold your finger to the burning wick would risk plunging your soul into the fiery pits of hell for a few days of pleasure on this earth. Do you fear these pitiful flames? The final conflagration will scorch the face off the earth. Oh, pray that you will be among the chosen, pray that you will be raised in grace before you see the days of our Lord’s wrath.”
Freda Graves squeezed out the flames, one by one, between her thumb and forefinger.
Elliot sat down beside his fat, grinning wife. Mrs. Graves spoke with the voice of a woman who has crossed the valley of bones and climbed to the mountaintop, her bare feet cut and bleeding. “My children,” she said, “didn’t Matthew tell us that a man who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery in his heart? If your right eye leads you into sin, pluck it out.”
She made Elliot confess. “Olivia Jeanne’s come back,” he said. “Wants to take me on another ride.” He wouldn’t let her in the door, so she’d parked her Winnebago right in front of the Last Chance Bar. “Says she’ll ruin my business if I don’t do what she wants.” Now I knew I’d seen Miss Olivia Jeanne Woodruff, but I never thought she’d be any man’s temptation. Her skin was yellow, and her long eyes had a sleepy, stupid look. Even so, I wondered what a girl as young as Olivia saw in the likes of Elliot Foot.
“Heed the words of Peter,” said Mrs. Graves. “She has eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin. She entices unsteady souls. Her heart is trained in greed. She would steal you from your children.”
There was some speculation among us that Olivia Jeanne had been carried back to Willis on the very wings of the devil. This was an interesting topic, and we couldn’t help letting our minds wander for a half hour or so—though Mrs. Graves had warned us about giving the devil that kind of attention.
The room was cramped and sticky with the heat of our bodies. There was too much furniture: a heavy green couch, the overstuffed loveseat, the long table, and a dusty bookshelf that stretched along one wall from floor to ceiling. But Freda Graves kept no books on her huge shelf. I suspected novels were evil in her mind, the work of the devious imagination. History was a lie. There was only one book worth reading.
The bottom shelf was devoted to Christ. She had a dozen crucifixes, variations of suffering. One was a crude wooden carving. Thorns pierced Christ’s head and he wept. His twisted body was emaciated. Anothe
r was smooth soapstone. This fat Jesus looked blissful as a Buddha, grateful for his pain, as if he had transcended worldly sorrow. In a small painting the Son of God was angry; he had the look of a rabid dog ready to bite the hands of the women who longed to comfort him. I wondered if one image was true, or if Christ had taken all these forms.
We prayed for Elliot to be strong and shun Olivia Jeanne Woodruff, but even as I prayed I thought we might be wrong. What if Olivia was the woman he was meant to love? What if his years with Joanna had been a mistake? Some of the women moaned and sobbed just thinking about the depravity of it all. Eula and Luella Lockwood crooned, arms locked, heads touching. Perhaps they were thinking of Jack Wright; perhaps they tormented their neighbor because they loved him.
Lyla Leona wriggled out of her place—her flesh shook under that flimsy satin; her breasts sagged. She lifted poor Elliot right out of his seat, squished his face into the soft folds of her chest and wailed, “I know, baby, I know how it is. Ain’t it awful, baby?”
Elliot’s glasses hit the floor, his nose disappeared. That brought Joanna Foot to her senses, and she pulled her husband out of Lyla’s grasp. Bo Effinger wiped his palms on his pant legs, but there was no way to slow the sweat.
I was confused. I thought about Aunt Arlen telling us that Joanna Foot wasn’t going to let Elliot touch her for a whole year, that he had to prove his devotion, had to be purified by abstinence. Maybe Joanna was long past loving him in any way that would do him any good. For all Elliot knew, he might never be clean enough for her. The year was only a trial period. Now I couldn’t be sure Olivia Jeanne loved Elliot either, but she wanted him—that was plain. If she did love him, I thought that might be stronger than law, even God’s law. I didn’t dare say it. What did I know? It was my first night. God’s mind was wide as Moon Lake and twice as deep. But as I prayed for Elliot Foot I could only bring myself to ask God to show him what was right.
16
ONE OF the high school boys had bought a keg. All day the secret rippled through school in whispers and scribbled notes. At dusk the revelers planned to meet in the gully.
I’d spent three Tuesday nights at Freda Graves’s, so I already knew that I had to witness, to take the Word where it had not been heard. Of course I considered alcohol one of the most dangerous temptations, an evil in itself that gave men an excuse to commit other sins. “Jesus walked among the worst of men,” Freda Graves said, “and he asks you to do the same.” The worst I knew were boys who drank themselves into idiocy. I meant to work my way up from there. I was proud of my knowledge, pitiful as it was.
I’d invented a friendship for myself, with Rita Ditella, to explain my evenings away from home. I hoped Mother wouldn’t see Rita’s mom at the grocery store and just happen to say, “I’m so pleased our girls are getting on.” Mother knew Gwen and I had some kind of rift between us. She felt sorry for me but respected my privacy too much to ask what had happened.
Though I’d never actually spoken with Rita, she came in handy, and I used her again tonight. I told myself the lie was justified: I was off to do good works. But when Mother said, “Have a nice time,” I couldn’t quite convince myself I was doing the right thing.
I found the gang near the pond. The woods were shadowy and tempting, full of memories I wished to escape. So I concentrated on my recently acquired wisdom instead. I thought my holiness must be visible, a light around my head. If I unfolded my hands, my palms would glow with the sacred flame protected there. But no one seemed to notice these extraordinary gifts.
Gwen Holler rolled in the grass with Gil Harding. Her blouse was torn open, and Gil clutched at her breast. Jill Silverlake sprawled, facedown in the dirt. Zack Holler turned her over. She groaned. Even Zachary couldn’t take advantage of a girl in her condition. She crawled toward the woods on her hands and knees. Her skirt was hiked up around her waist, so everyone saw her underpants, dotted with dozens of red hearts. Jill would be my first convert. I followed her. “Jesus loves you,” I said, kneeling beside her. She swatted at the air as if my voice were a pesky mosquito around her head. “You can be saved tonight, right here, if you give your life up to Jesus.”
“Fuck off,” said Jill.
I stood. Somehow I’d expected my work to be much easier. Perhaps Jill Silverlake wasn’t a good choice for a witness as inexperienced as myself. “Come find me if you change your mind,” I said.
I returned to the clearing. Rita Ditella danced around the campfire. She was sixteen, already a woman with a large bosom and full hips. Her pants were unzipped, but no one bothered to tell her. She’d squatted behind a rock to pee and had forgotten this last detail. I was glad she wasn’t really my friend.
Drew Grosswilder, Marlene’s brother, had bought the keg. Now he sat beside it, filling his cup again and again. Drew’s face was smooth and rosy; he was so fat he had little pointed breasts. “Take it off,” he yelled to Rita, his voice surprisingly high. Rita ignored him as she pirouetted in the flickering light.
Drew’s lack of success with Rita Ditella rankled him, so he looked around for someone he knew he could bully. He didn’t have to go far. Lewis Champeaux sat on the other side of the keg, holding an empty cup. Drew rocked forward on his knees to jab the Indian boy in the arm. “Who invited you?” he said.
“No one,” Lewis whispered.
“Yeah? Well there’s a reason for that, boy. This party’s for white people.”
Lewis was half as wide as Drew Grosswilder. He inched away from the keg, out of Drew’s reach.
Drew filled his cup one more time. “Want a beer?” he said to Lewis. His voice had gone sweet, the closest he could come to making an apology. Lewis leaned closer to take the drink, and Drew laughed, a shrill girlish giggle, then guzzled down the beer himself. “I know what liquor does to Indians,” he said. “Once I made a man roll over and play dead just by promising to buy him a pint. I think it might have been your daddy, Lewis.”
Lewis Champeaux stood up without a word and walked to the other side of the clearing. I wondered why he stayed at all. Perhaps he considered this some test of patience. I wanted to ask him, but I was afraid he wouldn’t care to talk to a white girl after what Drew had said.
I moved toward him, a foot at a time, until I sat beside him. The air around Lewis Champeaux was entirely his own; I was no more important to him than a rock or a cloud. Finally I said, “Why are you here?”
“To watch,” he said.
I waited for him to say more. Just watching seemed unkind.
“And you?” he said.
I’d come here to witness, to lead one wayward soul out of the forest. But I’d failed with Jill Silverlake and given up. “The same,” I told him.
“Is it true?” Lewis said.
“What?”
“Does liquor make Indians more foolish than white people?”
I looked at Drew—fat, silly Drew who was mean even before he was drunk. “No,” I said, “of course not.” But I had believed it did all my life.
Slowly, boys and girls paired off and wandered into the forest. Rita Ditella ended up with Zack Holler. I thought they were a good match. Rita was big enough to handle Zack. She wouldn’t let him do anything she didn’t like. Soon I was the only girl. I sat on a rock, safe in the shadows. I longed to be approached, to be desired so that I could refuse. But the three boys who were left, Drew Grosswilder and his friends Luke Stallard and Albert Cornett, only cared about the keg of beer and the fire that was fading fast. There was a fourth boy. He sat close to me but stayed so still I almost forgot he was there.
Luke and Albert tried to keep the fire torched, but the wood they’d gathered was damp and gave off more smoke than flame. Drew was too drunk to help. He laughed at the other boys. “No more beer for you if you can’t get that fire going,” he said.
Lewis Champeaux approached the dismal blaze. He pulled smoldering sticks off with his bare hands and rebuilt the stack, breathing on embers, fanning the first flames with his long fingers. He never took h
is eyes off those flames, as if turning away would be betrayal, as if the fire would know and flicker out.
Soon the fire roared, and Lewis sat back, satisfied and warm. But Drew’s two friends didn’t like being shown up by a skinny black-haired boy.
“Just an Indian,” one muttered.
“Only good for one thing.”
“Who asked you here, anyway?”
They poked at his shoulders.
“Speak up, boy.”
“Somebody cut out your tongue?”
A knife flashed, glinting with firelight in Albert Cornett’s hand. Albert’s face was wide and flat, his eyes unusually small, squinty little pig eyes. He looked like a moron when he grinned, a boy born with half a brain. “Somebody will,” he said.
“Keg’s empty,” said Drew.
“Goddamned Indian drank all our beer,” Albert said, slashing the air.
I couldn’t move. I should have yelled Albert’s name to remind him who he was, but I sat, pretending nothing bad was going to happen. I prayed for faith. I told myself God would protect us all if only I could believe.
“Stand up, boy.”
“You hear me?”
“That’s more like it.”
In a minute they’d stop. They’d laugh and slap Lewis on the back. “No harm done,” they’d say. I kept praying. God would save us if my trust in Him was pure enough.
“Give me your belt,” Luke Stallard said. The fire lit his face. His cheeks were pocked with acne scars, and his big nose made him look like a mad wood rat.
“Mind the man,” said Albert.
“Faster, red boy. We don’t got all night.”
Drew Grosswilder propped himself against the empty keg. He was smiling, enjoying the show.
Meteors in August Page 12
