The Green Rolling Hills

by V. J. Banis

  He didn’t know who he was dealing with, though; he had no feel for true misery. She touched the faded scars where her wrist joined her palm: That was her main advantage. She might not be a player in his league, but she’d be damned if she’d be defeated in his game. If she couldn’t find the strength to break free, she would go out all right, but in her own way, on her own schedule, and fix it so he wouldn’t get any satisfaction. He wouldn’t get to touch her body, or play Orpheus and Eurydice in a sham of guilt-ridden grief. Her body, her body, would be burned to ash and the ash spread on the river near Zachary Road, in West by God Virginia, where she and her dog used to lie on the bank, all those years ago.

  She had made plans, and her will held precise instructions about what would happen once she was gone. A linchpin was the last-minute call to 911. The EMTs would arrive just in time to have her declared dead on arrival; that way she’d be sure Redmond couldn’t walk in and try a new thrill, getting off before calling the coroner.

  She pressed her fingertips against her eyelids; her thoughts felt heavy and inert, like stone, like strata exposed by ridge cuts at the side of the Road, each layer weighing down the one before through endless time. In which of them had she finally been crushed? Dust to dust. The story played itself out, over and again.

  Grimacing at the mirror, she splashed her face a second time, and blotted it on a towel. The house on Zachary Road was the only real home she’d ever had, and Nanny and Pap the only real family, what with her parents having been what they were; now dead and gone forever. She hoped. As for her father’s people, well that was a whole other story.

  She hammered a big gulp of vodka from the tumbler by the toothbrush. The whole soap opera was their family curse, now hers, bequeathed by the Maginnis DNA, so she was doomed to keep it going: moth to a flame. A mad Luna, on its brief, killing flight of love.

  “Lila, darling, can’t you hurry it up? I don’t have all day, you know.”

  Lila. Darling. She hated his clipped, superior tone, and how that name—that pretentious, ridiculous name—sounded in his mouth. She’d adopted it when she moved to Washington, to impress people like him. “Lily” just didn’t seem classy enough at the time. Damn all of them straight to hell, with a one-way, first class ticket.

  But something in his voice was skittering down every nerve to its root: He was the tempter Mephistopheles, dangling a big-payout lotto, at a million-to-one.

  “I’m just freshening up. You know you want me to look nice.” She was wheedling, but, as always, kept her voice light. Striving to squelch stray diphthongs and twang, she continued, “I don’t want to look like I just got up out of bed.”

  “Just got out of bed,” he corrected, sauntering into the bathroom and stretching, lithe and lazy as a cat. The light in the room dimmed, like he sucked it in as his given right. Coming closer, he sandwiched her against the vanity, grinding his hips slowly:

  Who’s your daddy, who’s your daddy—I said baby, tell me, who’s your daddy? Who?

  “Why don’t we just go over to the Club for the last of the Sunday Brunch? Only the lushes will be left by now, and we can get Paul to make us a fresh omelet if the quiche looks dry.” He cupped her right buttock, rubbing his thumb along the curved indentation in the muscle and stroked a blunt finger along her arm, like a sculptor, or more sinister connoisseur of flesh. She could feel him begin to stiffen. “I like. You’ve been sticking with the workout program. Good girl.”

  She shuddered, breaking down for the big, randy stud, barely able to conjure a smile into the mirror. It looked fixed and false; horrible—those teeth: a jack-o’ lantern. Boo.

  He wanted her to say yes so he could preen, displaying her as a kind of impudent, evidentiary proof. The stuffed shirts of the by-invitation-only District of Columbia Club would take in the disguised bruises, the shadows under her eyes and the razor burns.... Too repressed to make themselves apparent, God alone knew what they thought, except if they were drinking. She imagined the very subtlety of their envy or opprobrium would give Redmond a delicious frisson of power. He’d batten on that, a carnivore in lust.

  She blushed, remembering when Redmond had bought her a dress for the club Christmas party: a white satin sheath that flowed over her like water. One beefy fellow, a little more than half-lit, had lumbered up, leaned forward and leered, “Why you dirty girl. Reddy was always such a lucky bastard,” then slipped her his card.

  The memory burned, two years after the fact. Hillbilly. Whore. Raw meat. That’s all they knew and all they wanted to know. Life in two dimensions: high and low. A surge of acid burst in her throat.

  Redmond muscled further forward, murmuring, “But why hurry, when there’s something so hot and delicious right here?” and brought his big, square hands to her waist, constricting it tightly as she slowly exhaled, deflating on command. Gradually, insistently, he moved his fingers up one at a time, corseting her, lifting and squeezing her breasts, his eyes coals in the mirror. She wondered if he gazed at all his errant prey like this; almost, she could feel his jaws clamp down and the slavering of his tongue as her reflexes jolted in.

  Bending from the hips as he took her, she closed her eyes and sank into a dark, humid and familiar place, spasming helplessly: Pavlov’s bitch in heat. Redmond used one hand to pin her as he took himself over the edge with a little, triumphant laugh.

  “There’s no one quite like you, darling. I’m afraid I can’t keep my damn hands to myself,” he said, straightening to appraise the planes of his three-quarter profile. His smile seemed so boyishly genuine. If you didn’t look closely, you’d swear it reached his eyes.

  “All right, Redmond.” Lily’s voice was flat; she was flat. She was a flounder looking up from the bottom of a saltwater tank. The tiles were so cool, so smooth; she took comfort in their indifference. “What would you like me to wear?”

  THE AZALEA QUARTET: AN EXCERPT FROM A NOVEL IN PROGRESS, by Trish Rudder

  Alabama in the 1950s

  It was sometime after my father died that I got to spend a lot of time with George and Kenneth Boone, my two favorite cousins. They lived across the street and a ways down from Grandmother’s house where I lived each summer, and I was allowed to go over there anytime I wanted. Grandmother Boone, Ida Boone, was pretty lenient with me—most everybody was—since my dad’s plane was shot down over Germany during the war. It hurt my mother, Lucy, real bad. She still got drunk all the time and raised hell. Grandmother Boone was a religious woman and had no tolerance for getting drunk or raising hell, if you know what I mean, so any time I got a chance, I would head over to George and Kenneth’s.

  Kenneth Boone was my age and George was three years younger, and summers with them were precious. When I was twelve, my mother shipped me off to Pennsylvania to go to a private school designed for kids without one parent. The War created a lot of us, but coming home to Arlan during summer reconnected me to my family.

  George, Kenneth and Aunt Edith lived in an old house with a tin roof. It was the best place to be when it was raining. I loved to listen to the rain beat on the old roof. Sometimes you could drum out songs along with it, but most of the time, it was best just listening. George never did like to do that, I guess because he was younger, but Kenneth and I always knew where to be when it started to rain.

  We also liked to spend time in their old barn where we discovered an old trunk and other family junk and we ate lunch together without adult intervention, and called it a “picnic.”

  The day was hot. Just like any summer day in Alabama. It was one of those days the tar burned your feet when you crossed the road, so you’d plan your days around having to cross it only in the early mornings or after the sun started to wane in the afternoons. Rain was always welcome on those hot summer days.

  The three of us were eating our lunch in the barn behind their house. Our “picnic” consisted of mayonnaise sandwiches and cornbread and buttermilk. The special way to eat cornbread and buttermilk is to tear up the cornbread in a glass and pour the but
termilk over it and eat it with a spoon.

  Kenneth was mixing his bread and milk up ever so gently not to spill any, when George knocked his own over and it ran all over his sandwiches.

  “Goddammit!” George said, getting up and wiping off the back of his shorts.

  “That was a pretty good trick, but you’re not gettin’ none of mine,” Kenneth said grabbing his own.

  “You can stick it. I don’t want none of that shit anyways.”

  “You can have mine,” I said. “Here.” I passed over two sandwiches to him. I was really filled up with cornbread and buttermilk and I could get more from our kitchen any time I wanted.

  “Oh, boy, thanks,” George said as he took a big bite.

  Kenneth watched George devour most of one sandwich. “Only reason Robert gave it to you was because he picked his nose before he tore up his bread.”

  George looked at me and I saw the reaction in his face. It was either “I know he’s only saying that,” or “I think I’m going to be sick.” I was pretty sure which one won out when he turned white and ran out of the barn.

  “I knew the little asshole would puke,” Kenneth laughed.

  “How’d you know I picked my nose before I tore up the bread? I did, but then I switched glasses with you!”

  “Well, then that’s why it’s the best damned cornbread and buttermilk I ever ate!”

  And we both laughed and giggled so much we knew we’d bring on a stomach ache or make ourselves puke, too.

  George came back in the barn and lay down on the straw with his arm over his eyes. He was pretty scrawny looking for eleven—he probably needed to eat all the cornbread and milk he could fit in. I felt a twinge of guilt over messing with him, but I didn’t say anything in front of Kenneth. He didn’t take too kindly about apologizing for things you did to George. I knew he’d never apologize. That’s why everything became so clear to me that particular summer about Kenneth and George and especially Aunt Edith.

  “Come on, let’s go to the creek for a swim,” I said.

  “Mama ain’t gonna let me,” Kenneth said, shaking his head.

  “Good,” George spat, sitting up quickly.

  “Maybe she’s real busy and she won’t notice if we don’t tell her this time,” I encouraged. “Let’s just get our trunks and you can hide a towel under your shirt, Kenneth. Maybe she won’t see us.”

  We ran back to the house and quickly yanked our swim trunks off the line between the two best and biggest pecan trees. Unfortunately, there was no towel with them, so we quietly went into the kitchen on our way to their bedroom. The kitchen smelled of supper cooking: black-eyed peas and collards simmering on the back of the old cook stove, and a fresh pan of cornbread next to it waiting for next meal. I still love the smell.

  We stole quietly down the hall. Kenneth got a towel from the closet and slipped it under his shirt, and we were almost home free when Aunt Edith met us coming out the kitchen door.

  “Where you boys off to?”

  “No where special,” said Kenneth, trying to look innocent.

  “Goin’ swimmin’, Mama,” piped George, at the very same moment.

  The incredulous look we gave him was to kill, except even back then I knew I’d never want to be responsible for somebody’s dying.

  Edith said to Kenneth: “Now, baby, you know you can’t go to that swimmin’ hole.”

  “Why not this time, Mama,” sighed Kenneth.

  “Can I go?” George said, pulling on her hand.

  “Don’t hang on me like that, George,” Edith said, pulling up her arm. “Besides, you cain’t swim,” Edith glared down at him.

  “I’ll just wade, Mama. Besides, Robert won’t let me drown.”

  I couldn’t believe George tattled, but even worse, I couldn’t stand watching Kenneth and his mother.

  “I can swim. Let me go with them, Mama,” Kenneth said.

  Kenneth and I both knew full well she wouldn’t, and there was no begging from him even back then. He had already given up on the begging.

  “I said no, baby. Now don’t ask me about it no more today. Maybe tomorrow....”

  “We can go, though, cain’t we,” George said jumping up and down.

  “As long as you watch him, Robert,” Edith turned toward me.

  “Yes, ma’am, but maybe we could wait ’til tomorrow if we all could go.”

  I looked at Kenneth waiting for him to say something, but he didn’t.

  George whined, “No, less’ go now, Robert.”

  “I’d rather wait ’til tomorrow.” I left them huddled by the back door and just walked away.

  George was disappointed, I know, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t care about his feelings, even though it wasn’t his fault Kenneth couldn’t go swimming. It was Aunt Edith.

  “I guess swimmin’ wasn’t all that important unless you sneak it, huh?” she said huffily going through the kitchen door.

  “Damn you, Robert,” George yelled as he threw something at me.

  “Cut it out, George. You act like a fool,” Kenneth said. He walked into the house.

  * * * *

  Delia, our colored housekeeper, must have been ageless. She started working for the Boone family as a young girl and helped raise my father and now she was raising me.

  She didn’t look old in the face, but her hair was gray and she wore it pulled back in a knot at her neck. She wore glasses all the time now, but she was strong—her figure told you that—lean and long and with shiny black skin. She was beautiful, too. My mother, Lucy, told me sometimes both of them would take a drink of moonshine now and then and try to keep their lifted spirits under control when Grandmother Boone was close by.

  Delia didn’t drink with Lucy much any more. Lucy liked to drink with the loggers just over the Mississippi state line, where you could buy real whiskey served in a glass.

  She took me to the State Line Cantina once, and I watched her and her friends with envy as they drank their store-bought whiskey and Orange Crush chasers. I was allowed only the Orange Crush. I got to play the jukebox as much as I wanted, and I still remember Gene Autry’s “Ghost Riders in the Sky.” Lucy said I got to soundin’ almost like him ’cause I mimicked him so.

  * * * *

  I slammed into the kitchen and Delia turned around from the stove.

  “What’s the problem, Robert?”

  “Aunt Edith won’t let Kenneth do anything. She treats him like a baby and George is younger, but she lets him do everything. Stuff he shouldn’t be doing!” I crashed into the table and pulled out a chair and flopped into it angrily.

  “That house is full of misery, Robert, and Edith Boone has her share, more than most.”

  “Kenneth is full of misery, Delia,” I whispered defeatedly and walked out, knowing little would change.

  Our summer continued much in the same way, and when we were together we had happy times, so we came up with ways to get around my Aunt Edith.

  Actually, I devised ways to deceive her, and Kenneth went along with them. George pretty much did what we told him to do. It was hot and we wanted to swim at Oaktepa Creek, the best swimming hole and the one farthest from their house. Before we had our weekly Saturday night bath, I told Kenneth to grab an extra pair of underwear for both George and himself.

  “I’m tired of wearing two pair of drawers,” George complained at church on Sunday. “When are we going swimmin?”

  “Shush! We cain’t go today, everybody will be watching us,” I whispered. George just never did see the big picture right away. I don’t think he was just dim-witted; I hoped it was because he was young.

  So we wore two pair of underpants for a few days until we took off for the Oaktepa, where we stripped down to one pair to use as swimming trunks.

  The creek was a good hike through the woods, but it was worth it. It stayed cool by the shady oak trees and willows that grew on the banks, and the sun dappled through the trees with just enough heat to warm it. Blackberry bushes grew underneath the trees a
nd gave way to the yellow sand on the creek bank. Still, as idyllic as the setting was, you always had to be watchful of critters, particularly water moccasins. I carried rocks in my pocket for that reason.

  When I first jumped in, the muddy bottom oozed between my toes, but the water was clear and clean.

  “Hell, yeah, this is worth wearing two pair of skivvies, right Georgie,” Kenneth yelled, floating on his back.

  “I took both mine off,” grinned George. “We’re probably the only boys in Alabama that have to wear clothes while swimmin’. It ain’t right.”

  “Suit yourself. But if something bites your you-know-what ’cause it’s bobbing in front a’ ya, it’ll be death for sure,” Kenneth said. He paused, still floating. “Or at least you’ll never be able to piss right,” he continued with a straight face.

  George swam furiously to the bank, ran to his clothes pile and slipped on his underwear. He ran back to the creek and dove in. Shaking the hair and water from his eyes, “It ain’t worth the loss.”

  All three of us laughed and floated down the creek until our fingers and toes were wrinkled and we began looking forward to our noon meal.

  Kenneth and I made sure to watch George and made him get out of the water to sit on the bank to dry off. This would keep Aunt Edith from suspecting anything like his wet hair and pruny fingers.

  The blackberry bushes by the bank were thick enough to drape our wet pants over and still be hidden from a distance, and we left them there until we went swimming again.

  We all steered clear of Aunt Edith, but to be extra safe, Kenneth and I began putting Vitalis in our hair after the swim, which gave us that greasy, wet look and disguised the creek smell, too.

  “How come I cain’t have some for my hair, too,” George whined, watching.