by Jack Cady
We own the power of memory, and the memory of order . . . a door opened quietly behind me. Nurse Johnson, of course. A good kid in a bad world. Her footsteps sounded hushed across the terrace. She remained silent at first, standing beside me and looking at the terrain. The world went quiet. I could hear her breathing, practically hear her pulse.
"He was in a wheelchair," she whispered.
"He angled back and forth across the hill. When he got to the woods he dropped out of the chair and did body rolls. Where he couldn’t roll he used an infantryman’s crawl. You don’t need much in the way of legs. You need shoulders."
Silence returned. She did not blame me. She is not like most other people. She doesn’t see her patients, or her neighbors, as problems. She’s old fashioned enough to grant room without a lot of explanations.
"They must have had reasons."
"If I explain," I told her, "it won’t mean anything. It has to be discovered."
"I miss him badly. I miss all of them, but he was so ornery. Suppose I have to miss you too?"
From inside the ward, but faintly, some guy sang tuneless as a bluejay . . . "I’ll be seeing you . . ." Sure, buddy, of course, right, you bet. Nurse Johnson’s face came alert as a new mother hearing her baby squall. "You’re too good for this place," I told her. "You shouldn’t have to worry about a bunch of worn out carcass . . ." She raised her hand to shush me. The guy stopped singing.
"I don’t want to lose any more of you." Her voice remained hushed. Slabs in the cemetery glowed beneath streaks of sun. A flag that, in other days, you didn’t have be ashamed of, hung limp.
"I make no promises because I can’t," I told her. "We may be playing out a script written half a century ago."—More than that, nurse Johnson, because it may go back to WWI. —I thought of all the courageous people I’ve known through the years. "I don’t know why anyone would want to be a nurse," I told her. "I’m glad you are."
"Why would anybody want to be a soldier?" Her voice sounded husky. She controlled tears.
She doesn’t know anything about Thermopylae. She is vague about the Battle of Britain. "There’s blessed few who want to be soldiers," I told her. "Things happen." I felt a presence at my side, caught a glimmer of white in the corner of my eye. I didn’t even need to turn in order to know that my Korean patriarchs were there, all five of them, three with staffs and two with those silly damn squirrel rifles.
"I have to do my job," she said, and it was obvious she didn’t see my Koreans. "I figure you’re going to try another heist." She showed more sadness than I’ve ever seen, even from her. "This place used to worry about what was good or bad. I can’t be here every minute."
"Burnside was crazy about you," I told her, and that was the truth. Then I told a lie, but one that seemed fitting. "You’re the only woman who ever made Burnside blush."
"I’m not above a little flirting." She tried to smile, "And it helps keep the guys alive. Plus, it don’t cost a red cent." Then for a little while she wept.
I wanted to touch her hand, tell her it was okay, say how much her toughness and honesty meant. I wanted to say a whole lot of things; but of course there are things you shouldn’t do, even if you could.
IV
Hours passed. I hobbled here and there, lining up the action—old folks at home—supper came and went. I talked to quartermaster Wilson, a good man and surprisingly sane. When a guy has been blind these fifty years you don’t expect his brain to amount to much. Wilson figures he has precious little to lose, and it may feel good to be needed. TV bubbled around us, and evening news forgot Burnside in its pursuit of a new sensation; fornication between politicians and lady trust officers. I talked to Bosun Tilton who will lead us, because for this job we need legs, not hands. We press the enemy backward with memories, with the power of history, with scenes of sense and order.
Meanwhile, the ward remains tranquil on its face. The two Wacs hold court, and the b.s. level rises and shifts in their direction . . . a couple of real cute tale spinners, real purveyors, and who would’ve ever thought? The girls have set up a deal with the wheelchair guys, and the girls are conning staff out of its collective drawers. The Wacs are spellbinders, and our guys gather round them. Staff eases off, relaxes, sees things as normal, lets down its guard. Our people seem curiously free, some for the first time in their lives, and even the senility cases are more or less in touch. Light flickers against walls, red and black like cities burning, but the ward sits busy planning while pain comes to the evening Neilsens. Our troops set about using their last resource, their helplessness, to provide cover.
And ghostland surrounds. And ghostland remains voiceless. And ghostland reaches toward us, promissory of help or support; or maybe grateful for just being remembered. We have Japanese here, a few Germans. We have Africans from Kraut rubber plantations, and native coast watchers from the islands. We have mule skinners from the Burma Road, and resistance people, French and Greek and Eyetye, Dutch and Norwegians and Belgians; Russian and Polish horsemen.
And nobody brings a flag. We have Laps and Turks, Brits and Aussies; Waltzing Matilda. Music runs more faintly than echoes. We hear few marches, mostly ballads.
And soon it will be time to go. And if anyone hears this tape it may mean that you still have a little time. It may mean that one of us got through.
I come to the terrace, watch the night, and muse.
Across the terrain light swirls as faces of hell appear, the 20th century condensing in a way that would make jealous the good folk at Reader’s Digest . . . this blood-saturated century.
As if on a movie screen the world’s first operational tank appears, moving like a tilted triangle, squashing trenches and barbed wire. The first machine gun speaks, and the first airplane engine revs and purrs, spits and pops. In the background the first radio quacks about 1920s sex scandals while selling chewing gum and snake oil. Napalm flares from later wars and the Victory V hangs like a checkmark above blown bridges, shattered cathedrals, smoldering rings of fire where once stood huts of thatch.
And the message says that, unless it is stopped right now, it all begins again; the old hatreds, the egos rampant, the fists raised proclaiming that one or another god grants the right to yell instead of think. The message says that each time the world forgets how Evil exists, Evil gets a resurrection; and the word ‘honor,’ extinguishing, turns to smoke.
But there once lived men who knew that some things were worth dying for. There once were women who fought for their own, and fought for others as much as they were able.
In a geriatric ward a body is no big advantage, anyway, and so this is how it shapes: we can’t form the future but we can show responsibility.
We’ll not exactly perambulate singing, but we’re going to go, a bunch of old men, some weak from operations; one blind with strong legs, one with eyes who can guide while leaning on the blind, another with a pincher for a hand; old men led or followed by ghosts of former allies and enemies fanning downhill against a void. It needs only one of us to get across that bridge in order to establish a presence, and we go with little hope of rescue; not of Burnside, or Harvey, or of ourselves. Nobody here weighs much more than an angel. We suppose the bridge will hold.
And the comrades we leave behind, and the girls we leave behind will form our cover. The two Wacs plan a ruckus just before dawn. The wheelchair guys will feign seizures. Staff will be overworked, too occupied. We’ll slip away, as silent as the far side, as silent as memory, with smallest hope of helping fallen comrades, but with no farewells and no apologies, as the far side weeps; as even ghostland waves goodbye.
Poetry Makes Nothing Happen
One more book of poetry arrives in the mail, and this dull day is made brighter. This particular book is titled Reasons For Going It On Foot by William Pitt Root [Atheneum $6.95]. Root is one of the most powerful young poets operating in this country today. We on the Peninsula are lucky. Root gets over our way every year or two.
When I say young, I mean a
pproximately 40. Few poets become as good as Root, and only after 20 years of work. In the old days, back when poetry was tied to romance, some awfully good poets were successful while quite young: Keats, Shelley and Wordsworth are examples. Still, youth got in their way. Perhaps the worst line in English literature belongs to Wordsworth: "For nature never did betray the heart that loved her." That is straight schmaltz from a romantic who had never been bitten by a bee, frozen by a storm, or attacked by poison ivy.
The Peninsula, and especially Port Townsend, keeps missing the point when it comes to poetry and poets. Some of the finest poets in this nation regularly come to Port Townsend. Only a few people notice, although maybe the merchants notice when money descends on the town as Centrum holds a writers’ conference. In addition, some fine poets live in and around Port Townsend and Chimacum. When we fail to listen to what these folks have to say it is our loss, not theirs.
Perhaps poets and poetry are not appreciated here because we believe that poetry is not practical. We think that poetry cannot be eaten, lived in, or worn. It cannot be spent, saved or invested. Poetry seems even more intangible than life insurance. This is a common opinion in many places. It only shows how common opinions can get.
Maybe we have simply never learned to read poetry.
Poetry cannot be read the way this newspaper is read. It is best read aloud, or at least slowly and word by word.
This newspaper tries to give concise information. Poetry tries to give information, but in a way that allows the reader to create something extra of his own. A newspaper allows us to form opinions. Poetry allows us to originate understanding for ourselves and others—even, sometimes, in spite of our opinions.
Here is Root drawing a picture, the same way that a painter uses paint to portray more than a simple landscape. The picture comes from the poem "Rain, You Say."
WHERE I AM
it is snow falling and columns
of shocked mercury falling
below zero, fixing all
the trees and houses,
all the hills and hollows
in a lunar nimbus
bright and frail yet capable
of shearing sheets of stone
from cliffs like stiff pages
turned in an old book.
This is perfect writing that is not in metre, but in cadence. The words step purposefully, exactly, and they are not unlike jazz. When we listen to jazz we hear the notes, but we also hear the spaces between the notes. In Root’s poetry we hear the words, and hear the deep silences between the words.
"Poetry," said W.H. Auden, "makes nothing happen." He wrote that in a poem that wept over the death of William Butler Yeats. It was an angry poem, and the fury of his despair rose high and savage in his hunger to say exactly what poetry does make happen.
Poetry is the voice of love, of fury, of understanding. It does not preach. It does not pass laws, or throw anyone in jail. Poetry does not make anyone do anything.
Poetry allows. If we want to love well, to be tender instead of brutal, kind instead of cruel, then poetry allows us to do that. It helps us understand how to go about doing that.
About the Author
Jack Cady (1932-2004) won the Atlantic Monthly "First" award in 1965 for his story, "The Burning." He continued writing and authored nearly a dozen novels, one book of critical analysis of American literature, and more than fifty short stories. Over the course of his literary career, he won the Iowa Prize for Short Fiction, the National Literary Anthology Award, the Washington State Governor's Award, the Nebula Award, the Bram Stoker Award, and the World Fantasy Award.
Prior to a lengthy career in education, Jack worked as a tree high climber, a Coast Guard seaman, an auctioneer, and a long-distance truck driver. He held teaching positions at the University of Washington, Clarion College, Knox College, the University of Alaska at Sitka, and Pacific Lutheran University. He spent many years living in Port Townsend, Washington.
Resurrection House, through its Underland Press imprint, is publishing a comprehensive retrospective of his work in a project called The Cady Collection.
Patrick Swenson was the editor and publisher of Talebones magazine from 1995 to 2009, and is the publisher of Fairwood Press. His first novel, The Ultra Thin Man, was released in 2014. When he isn't writing, he's teaching literature and composition in the Pacific Northwest. He runs the Rainforest Writers Village retreat, which is held every spring on the Olympic Peninsula.
The Cady Collection
Novels
The Hauntings of Hood Canal
Inagehi
The Jonah Watch
McDowell’s Ghost
The Man Who Could Make Things Vanish
The Off Season
Singleton
Street
Dark Dreaming [with Carol Orlock, as Pat Franklin]
Embrace of the Wolf [with Carol Orlock, as Pat Franklin]
Other Writings
Phantoms
Fathoms
Ephemera
The American Writer
Phantoms is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used in an absolutely fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 the Estate of Jack Cady
Original publication information about the respective stories is located on the following pages.
All rights reserved, which means that no portion of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is U017, and it has an ISBN of 978-1-63023-004-3.
This book was printed in the United States of America, and it is published by Underland Press, an imprint of Resurrection House (Puyallup, WA).
like a specter risen from distant waves . . .
Cover Design by Jennifer Tough
Book Design by Aaron Leis
Ebook conversion by Hydra House
Collection Editorial Direction by Mark Teppo
First Underland Press edition: February 2015.
www.resurrectionhouse.com
Extended Copyright
The original edition of "Dear Friends" was released by Copperhead in 1976.
"The Parable of Satan’s Adversary" originally appeared in Talebones Magazine in 2003.
"Our Ground and Every Fragrant Tree is Shaded" and "Ride the Thunder" originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in 1994 and 1967, respectively.
"The Ghosts of Dive Bomber Hill" originally appeared in The Ghosts of Yesterday collection, published by Night Shade Books in 2003.
"Miss Molly’s Manners" (co-written with Carol Orlock) originally appeared as a limited edition chapbook published in concert with the hardback edition of The Ghosts of Yesterday collection, published by Night Shade Books in 2003.
"The Souls of Drowned Mountains" originally appeared in Taverns of the Dead, published by Cemetery Dance Publications in 2005.
"Now We Are Fifty" originally appeared in the collection Tattoo, published by Circinatum Press in 1978.
"Seven Sisters" originally appeared in The Dark: New Ghost Stories, published by Tor in 2003.
"The Twenty-Pound Canary" originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in 2003.
"The Art of a Lady" originally appeared in the collection The Burning and Other Stories, published by the University of Iowa Press in 1973.
"Weird Row" and "Tattoo" originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in 2002 and 1996, respectively.
"Tinker" originally appeared in Glimmer Train magazine in 1992.
"Kilroy Was Here" originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in 1996.
"Poetry Makes Nothing Happen" was originally published as a broadsheet in a private edition and has not been previously collected.
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