by Rick Bass
Sometimes when he meets a person for the first time and is trying to get to know or understand that person, it feels to him as it did the time he flew to California to visit his aunt and uncle. He flew at night, flying across the country, looking out his window down at all the darkness below. The snowcapped peaks and glacial basins glowed dully in the moonlight with a dim and terrible coldness, and the dark furze of the forest lay farther below and beyond. Still farther on, there were a few lone lights of civilization, tiny amid that darkness; and even as the plane began to draw near to its destination, with more lights becoming visible and brighter and more concentrated—individual trails and ribbons of light leading quickly now toward some central ganglia—the nexus of illumination, the fierce glow of existence, seemed infinitesimal, vulnerable, ludicrous amid all that darkness through which he had traveled; and his response was to wonder, That's it? So much darkness to yield such a little concentrated cluster and spark of light?
Yet like all who choose to dwell among others of their kind, in such villages—even though he does not feel or consider himself to be like others—he travels to the edge of that light and looks in at it. He throws a few sticks onto the fire, partly to stay warm but also partly to help keep that light burning, drawn to it even if he does not quite feel or experience it like most others.
He's done with Maxine. He feels completed. It's all over now except for the editing: the cutting and splicing, the compressing and attenuating; the reshaping, as if he is some little god who has decided to give her a second chance.
Even now as he sits there with her, he feels his hard-gotten empathy, the connection of the human bond like the ones he sees in so many others, fading, and he fidgets, wants to experience it a little longer.
He tries to sit very still, as if through such concentrated stillness he might summon it. He thinks this might be what people mean when they use the word magic—and he becomes uncomfortable again, for he does not much believe in such things, if at all.
He looks over at her and sees how exhausted she is, how brave and resolute, and he assesses from that observation that he should feel empathy, and thinks to himself, I am going to say something empathetic—but the fire of that quick, thin connection is leaving him, is cooling.
He tries to hold on to it a little longer. As if not through calculation or logic but instead blind instinct, he casts back, beseeching help not from the future, but from older generations who he believes were more successful in such matters, and who brought him to this place: the success of his kin, moving through the centuries.
He begins to tell Maxine a story about his great-great-grandfather, for whom he is named.
He's not quite sure of the tangle of maternal and paternal registry, the wiring that got him to this point—his mother has explained it to him, but sometimes he forgets a generation or two—but in the 1860s, the first Jefferson Eads was a hydrologic engineer, hugely gifted in the math and science of the time, who studied the Mississippi River in the years when men were first considering trying to tame it, trying to control its devastating floods, which Eads and a few others understood were also life-giving.
Not only were there plans to build dams and locks and levees along it, but bridges, too, spanning its absurd width. Most engineers merely walked up and down the muddy shores, making maps and measurements, but Jefferson Eads went into the river itself and prowled its depths in a crude diving bell apparatus of his own design, having fitted a copper shell over his head and breathing through a hundred-foot-long rubber hose attached to a float at the surface. For ballast, he clutched in both arms an immense boulder with an eyelet drilled into it, to which he would fasten himself upon reaching the bottom, so that his hands would be free to take samples and measurements.
What he found down there was different from what coursed above. There were different turbidities, different velocities. There were places where the river bottom was filled with inestimable depths of muck, and other places where the substrate was scoured to white bedrock. Giant snapping turtles tumbled through the current, spinning in cartwheels like the astronauts who would drift through space a century later, and sometimes even Eads himself would be carried downstream in similar fashion, despite the boulder to which he was attached, and despite the chains around his waist, his tether to the mother ship above, the barge from which he dived.
"It's a miracle I ever got here," Jefferson Eads tells her. Maxine is rapt, is listening as intently as she can, but is finding it hard to stay awake. All she wants, all she needs, is a little rest, but the story is too compelling; she must stay awake a little longer.
Is he casting a spell on me? she wonders, feeling herself descending toward sleep.
As she listens, it feels to her that she is fitted with a crudely hammered copper diving helmet herself, is tumbling, being swept along by a force so much greater than anyone above can know. But you made it here, she thinks, imagining that she is speaking to Jefferson Eads, though she is far too tired to say the words. Like an emissary, the first Jefferson Eads made it through, and this new traveler before her, his coincidental namesake, has made it. There is a line, a continuum: the journey can be completed and the connections made, no matter at what level, no matter whether at the surface or in the depths.
"There would be all these giant logs surging past," Jefferson Eads says. "None of them ever struck him or I wouldn't be here, but he'd feel them go rushing past, like battering rams. Sometimes they snaked along the bottom. He would try to grab hold of them as they swept past and ride them for a while, almost to the length of his tether. He had fashioned little numbered metal plates that he tried to tack onto them with engraved instructions, asking whoever found them to write him with their final location, hundreds or thousands of miles downstream—but he never heard from anyone. Maybe we will yet."
"Other times he would feel the logs surging past him, riding some upswell of current, some reverse vortex, which would hurl the logs straight up to the surface, propelling them into the air like rockets. Again, he passed through all these unharmed. Was he chosen, or was he lucky?"
Maxine's eyes are closing, her chin bobbing. Am I being hypnotized, she wonders, or is he trying to awaken me?
She sleeps. Jefferson Eads helps her lie down on her couch and pulls a blanket over her. He sits beside her and thinks about his great-great-grandfather. Was it true passion that sent him down into the depths, or was it only the place where he best fit the world and its destinies? A forced move in a designed space, the one lock-and-key fit where his enormous discord found brief respite.
No records or diaries, no testimonies exist, only artifacts, and the facts of his survival. His progeny, and the various histories of all their days that followed.
Jefferson Eads leaves one light on in the kitchen and gathers his gear, calls his parents to tell them he won't be staying over at the nice old lady's house after all—that he wants to come home and start working right away. It's about nine o'clock, on a weekend.
"Be careful," his mother tells him. He hears his father in the background, calling for him to be home by ten.
He loads his camera gear into the red wagon and then follows the luminaria down the sidewalk, crouching and puffing out each little candle as if kneeling in prayer, following his trail backwards toward the increasing darkness. He can imagine how others might be frightened of such darkness. He imagines that for some it is hard to learn how to wait, how to be certain that some light will always return.
LEAVING AGAIN
THE NEXT TIME they quit, Chet Atkins did not ask them for another favor. He could see what the road was doing to them, and he, better than anyone, could hear the unraveling now. He might have been able to carry them a little further, but the kindest thing was to let them go back home. He worried about Maxine, but it wasn't fair to Jim Ed, who was starting to schedule more and more concerts with Helen Cornelius, or to Bonnie, who, Chet knew, had been looking for an exit for longer than even she herself realized. The thing that had made them great—t
heir three voices becoming one—was now the thing that would have to separate them and end it. He had seen it before—the end of a sound, and the end of fame—though never quite like this, never all in the same family, and never such a sound.
Was the sound itself going away? Sometimes he thought it might be, but even he couldn't quite be sure.
This time, the Browns made the decision over the telephone, from their own homes, rather than gathering together. It wasn't quite as hard, in that they had already done it once before, but still, it wasn't easy. Jim Ed was relieved, and Bonnie was thrilled, which was not lost on Maxine, who, after hanging up the phone, had a change of heart.
She drove up to Bonnie's farm the next day. She didn't think she could change Jim Ed's mind—he was in love, and there was nothing dumber, she knew, than a man in love—but maybe she could come to some sort of agreement with Bonnie. Perhaps they could finally turn to Norma and the three sisters could sing. Maybe they could start all over. Maybe it would be even better than before.
It was July, the height of green summer in the South, and the farther she drove, the more she came to believe she would be successful in her endeavor to reclaim Bonnie from her farm. When had she never not gotten what she wanted?
The cinderblock honky-tonks, situated at the various intersections between dry and wet counties, beckoned to her, even in the bright heat of the day, but she kept going, eager to get up into the Ozarks before too late in the afternoon. She imagined the cold gin and tonic her sister might have waiting for her, and was surprised and disappointed, when she finally pulled in at the end of the long ascending driveway—the view of the green valley sublime below her—that there was no such refreshment awaiting her, nor was there any vodka to be found in the house. She wanted to ask for a sample of the bourbon she knew Brownie must keep somewhere but didn't dare betray her weakness before so intimate a witness as family. Still, she knew it was there somewhere and could not stop thinking about it.
"How are you?" Bonnie asked, giving her a hug.
"I'm okay," Maxine said. "All things considered, I'm okay." She had told Bonnie she could stay only for a day, and Bonnie figured that Maxine just didn't want to be alone after the breakup, that she wanted to talk over old times. It was the sweetest part of the summer for Bonnie and Brownie, when so much was ready to be harvested and when the food tasted best, a time when all the hard work they had put in over the spring and early summer no longer seemed like work at all.
Bonnie and Brownie had the feeling that they were getting away with something—their happiness—and they were aware that there were people in the world who would never know the same. They marveled at this, and perhaps had their own edges moderated or sanded down a bit by this realization—but in other ways, it made their own happiness even deeper.
They didn't deserve it, and they didn't not deserve it. Fate had nothing to do with it; it was just the way things had turned out, and they never ceased to be grateful for it, particularly when Maxine came to visit, bringing with her, almost like a stranger, that massive, crackling discontent.
Midsummer, there really wasn't time for Bonnie to devote herself to a visit by Maxine, but if there wasn't time then, with the days still at their sleepy fullest, then when would there be?
Watering the garden at first light, sometimes when the crickets were still chirping, and with the garden looking bejeweled when the sun came up, and with the water already soaking down into the soil before the heat of the day could evaporate it—and watering it again at dusk, as if putting it to bed—was a feeling richer than having money in the bank, with bowls of the day's pickings resting on the kitchen table, and the certainty, or near certainty, at that time of year, that the next day would bring still more bounty, and the day after that even more.
Maxine could suck the air out of a room. Not necessarily in a bad way: her presence simply always announced itself in such a manner, with its longing and expectations, so that a bystander ended up feeling some sort of response was required. Sometimes, as at a party, that was a fun thing, though other times—such as at home, in the lazy summer, with the garden being Bonnie's focus—it could be a bit taxing.
In all these minor conflicts, however—the mild resentments, and the too narrow attentions to self—each sister would remember Birdie, and the selflessness with which she had raised them. Is the future as uncomplicated, really, as a coin flip, with one daughter assuming that such devotion and singular attention were her mother's lifelong desire, and becoming so accustomed to receiving it that she comes to depend on it, always needing more, while another, lavished with the same attention and warmth, responds instead by trying to return that kind of devotion to the world, keeping only a modest amount for herself?
"Let me show you the garden," Bonnie said. "Brownie's still at work. What would you like for dinner?" She helped Maxine with her bag. The children were down at the creek, playing with friends. Bonnie stopped in the kitchen to pour Maxine a glass of lemonade and to show her the day's harvest, and while Maxine had known for a long time that Bonnie had another life than touring, and perhaps a better life, Maxine had always managed to put that knowledge aside, or to hide it beneath the surface.
She saw it now though as if for the first time—saw it most fully—not so much in Bonnie's newly relaxed demeanor, but in the beauty of the kitchen: brighter and more modern, certainly, than Birdie's had ever been, and yet somehow harking back to those days. The afternoon sunlight illuminating the lemonade pitcher, the lemonade's translucent fibers suspended, and the stainless steel bowls of produce—redleaf lettuce, greenleaf, radishes, green beans, snap peas, and tomatoes with their pungent, summery smell—combined with the density of Bonnie's happiness lead Maxine to understand finally that which for years she had been trying to avoid seeing or knowing.
Bonnie handed her the lemonade and asked her to come down to the garden. The sun was blazing, and Bonnie tossed Maxine a straw hat.
I don't have a chance in hell, Maxine thought. It's over. She wondered how and when her sister had grown up and away from her; at what point had she slipped away from her control? She doesn't care if she ever sings again, Maxine thought. Jim Ed had left her for Helen Cornelius, was what it felt like, Norma had gone off to college, and now Bonnie had turned her back on her, just as she had on Elvis, and chosen Brownie and her new family.
Bonnie entered the waist-high garden like a woman entering surf, wading in slowly, pausing often and putting her hands down to pluck one leaf or another. The day's weeds had already been picked and lay drying in the yard, curing and withering like hay. Maxine loved a good tomato. Bonnie remembered this, sought out a small one she had passed by earlier in the day, picked it, and handed it to her. Maxine took a bite from it as if it were an apple and was surprised at the jag of envy she felt, rather than pleasure, at how delicious it was. She took a sip of the lemonade—the ice cubes rattled as she did so, and she flinched, remembering her yearning—and for a moment, there in the heat and the sun with her sister, and with the green growing odor of the garden, her head swam, and she thought, All right, lay down your burden, step forward, and all will be all right.
"Are you sure you're all right?" Bonnie asked, direct if not blunt, and again Maxine was surprised; she didn't remember such confidence or assurance, such fullness.
"Yes," Maxine said, wondering how she would bring up her plea. Trying to figure a way to rephrase it, repackage it. Maybe later that night. Maybe not quite yet.
"I know it can't be easy on you," Bonnie said. "I know how much it meant to you."
Maxine followed her into the garden, moving cautiously, almost as if entering a jungle.
"I don't think I can stop," Maxine said, and now the peacefulness that had been present in the garden seemed to be vanishing quickly, as if it had been only an illusion. Bonnie stopped her casual tending and turned to look at Maxine, again with that new directness. They could hear the cries and shouts and laughter of the children off in the woods, the children coming back from the cr
eek.
"Well, you have to," Bonnie said, her tone different, and Maxine thought, Why, she's looking at me like I'm the enemy.
"It's just that we've worked so hard," Maxine said. "We've finally gotten free of Fabor, and we've made so many connections now. Hell," she said, "we've got Chet Atkins on our side. Do you know how many singers would kill for that?"
"No," Bonnie said, and Maxine, misunderstanding, said, "Well, plenty. Any of them would. I've been thinking," she said, "and I don't think it's right to turn your back on a gift."
"No," Bonnie said again, still in the middle of the garden but giving all of her attention to Maxine; and Maxine was about to press harder, even while knowing it to be a mistake, but the children came bursting from out of the woods, whooping and singing, then pausing at what they understood instinctively was a scene of conflict before recognizing Maxine, whom they had not seen in a long time.
They hurried over to hug her, calling out her name; softening her, in that regard, yet sharpening the ache, the terror, as she came to know further that which Bonnie had chosen and why she had chosen it.
Maxine's own children were back in West Memphis, with a babysitter. Why, she wondered, had she not thought to bring them?
They shelled peas that night, as they had when they were children. Brownie sat in the big overstuffed recliner, watching a baseball game, and Bonnie and Maxine side by side on the couch in an uneasy truce, fingers working quickly, rarely even having to look down. It seemed to Maxine that there was nothing in the world that would not remind her of music, and of their career—the Washington Senator she had dated was not playing that night but was sitting on the bench, having been demoted—but neither Bonnie nor Brownie commented on it, as if having forgotten, and they all three watched the game in contented silence while the children played board games upstairs.
