A Far Piece to Canaan (42 page)

A
fter that night, Fred did his usual thing and stayed away from everybody. I went back to the Mulligan house a couple weeks later. As I was climbing the hog lot gate I looked up to see Annie Lee in the upstairs window.

“Hi, Samuel.”

I froze straddling the gate and turned toward her. I never saw anybody look so sad. “Hi, Annie Lee,” and I couldn't think of nothing else to say. Then I said, “How y' doin'?”

“Tolerable,” she said, and sighed. “Lookin' for Fred?”

“Yeah, I was.”

“He won't talk t' you, Samuel. Won't talk t' nobody outside the fambly and don't say much t' us. You know how he is. I 'preciate your comin', but maybe hit's best t' give us a little more time.”

I nodded and just straddled the gate for a while. Then I said, “Tell him I said hi.”

“I will.”

I jumped down to walk home, then heard Annie Lee say: “Samuel.”

I turned and faced her. Her eyes were still sad but somehow they looked different.

“You're a good man, Samuel.”

I thought that was a strange thing to say, but it made me feel good. “Thanks, Annie Lee. You're a good woman too.”

Annie Lee just smiled at me. It was the sweetest smile.

I kept on being down in the dumps. Some because of Fred, but even more because we were going to leave Berman's. One day Dad got a phone call from a guy who had been looking for a farm for us. Dad sounded awful excited after the fellow told him about it and about how much it cost. The very next day the three of us took off for Indiana to see it. It sure was a long way. It seemed like we drove forever until we came to a town called Crawfordsville. That's where we met this guy who showed us the farm. It was ugly as a pig's ass, the buildings all run down, and only a couple trees on it. The fields looked like they had been cropped to death and the whole farm was real flat. I mean, wudn't enough slope to get a car rolling if its battery run down. Dead flat! The whole area was flat, every farm.

The house hadn't been lived in for a couple years and even though it had electricity and gas and a bathroom, everything was shabby. I felt better as soon as I saw the place because I knew we would never buy a farm that ugly.

We spent a couple of hours there looking, then driving around and ended up in the town of Crawfordsville. It was a pretty nice town and had a movie theater. It was thirteen miles from the farm we were looking at though, and that's a lot of pedaling on a bike. Mom and Dad sent me to the movies and said they would pick me up in a couple of hours. It was a good show. I was warm and happy until I walked out, and there was Mom and Dad waiting for me. They grabbed and hugged me and Dad said that I wudn't a sharecropper's kid anymore. We were proud owners of a fine farm!

“What farm?” I asked.

Dad laughed. “Why the one we just looked at, of course.”

I nigh puked. How could they buy that old junk farm? Then Dad started talking about how we were going to fix it up and how it was going to take a lot of work because we couldn't hire it done and how he was going need me to have the same kind of backbone that he and Mom had. Then he said we were going to get a tractor and lots of equipment, that the guy knew where we could get all of that stuff and it was a lot for the money and for me to get in the car because they were going to go up and go through my new school right now.

The school was a big old thing, bigger than Middletown by a lot. It was ugly too, except for the basketball court, which was really nice. I stood and watched their team practice. They were good, boy. I never saw high school players that good before and I knew wudn't any way I was ever going to make that team. By the time we got back to Berman's, I was lower than a mole's ass and it's under the ground.

When the last day of March come around, we were ready to move. We had our furniture and everything packed into a great big truck which Dad had gotten use of as part of the deal for the farm. We had sold off most of our farm equipment since we were going to be farming with a tractor now, and what small amount of livestock we had was going to be hauled separate.

Things were set to leave early the next morning. I was real low. I figured we were leaving Berman's forever and I was going to miss it so much. Also, I wudn't going to get to see Fred before we left. It was toward evening when I decided to wander around the farm and take one last look. I went to the tobacco barn, and sheep barn, then down to the tenant house, which was empty now because Radar and his family had gone back to the mountains. I looked at the volcano hill and thought about not seeing it again. It hit me then that I didn't realize how much I liked that hill. I could see little patches of green and knew that by mid-April everything would be lush and the cows and sheep would just be eating themselves silly.

I walked back to the house, and instead of going through the yard, I went through the barnyard gate for a last look inside the barn. I pushed the door and flipped on the electric. Boy, did it look lonesome. I wandered on past the stalls until I come to the back doors, pushed one out, and stuck my head through. I couldn't believe what I saw. There was Fred, sitting on the top rail of the same gate where I first met him. He had heard the door squeak when I pushed it and turned his butt so he could face me. We just kind of stared at each other, then I came out of the barn and crawled up on the gate. He looked real old. His face was lined and leather tan from being out so much in the past few weeks. Just like the first time we met he was wearing a bunch of shirts and wore-out Levi's. He smiled kind of weak and when he did his eyes seemed to sink back in his head.

“How y' doin'?” he asked, holding on to the top slat and rolling his hands around on it.

“Okay, I reckon. We're leavin' tomorra mornin'.”

Fred nodded. “What I heard. Where y'all goin'?”

“Dad and Mom bought a farm up in Indiana. We're gonna live up there.”

“You seen hit yet?”

“Yeah. Saw it before they bought it.”

“Is hit purty?”

I didn't want to lie, but I didn't want to tell him it was ugly either. It was my dad's farm, and he thought it was beautiful, and I didn't want Dad to feel bad if he ever heard what I said. “Not as pretty as it's gonna be when we get it all fixed up.”

“What's hit like?”

“Flat as a stomped-on toad frog. Ain't more'n two, three trees on it. But they're pretty. No elm, though. Good thing I'm not makin' slingshots anymore. You doin' okay?”

Fred pursed his lips together and looked out at the pasture, which was pretty much still bare with little patches of green here and there and some rotting snow where the sun had a hard time getting to it. “I'm doin' okay . . . little better.”

“That's good,” I said.

There were so many things I wanted to say. Fred and his family had hard times coming and I was leaving and couldn't do anything about them. This deep, heavy feeling come up in my chest like somebody mashing my heart. “What y'all gonna do, Fred?”

Fred reached into an inside shirt pocket and come out with a sack of Life Everlasting and some brown paper sack and offered me a slip which I took. After we rolled our cigarettes and lit up, he took a deep puff and blew it out slow. “Don't know, Samuel. Mr. Berman come by th' other day and said we had t' move. He said he was sorry, but he hada have a tenant and I wudn't able t' do everything a man could yet . . . especially missin' my finger.”

A lump come in my throat big as an apple and I had to wait to talk. After I fought back the lump I said, “Where y'all gonna go?”

“Ain't sure,” he said, shaking his head slow. “Annie Lee said she knew a place in Spears behind some restaurant. Figure she and WK used hit some if y' know what I mean. She said if we fixed hit up ourselves and she took a job waitin' tables and me takin' dirty dishes to th' kitchen, th' restaurant people might let us live in hit free.”

There was a little quiet spell, then Fred turned and looked into my eyes. “Samuel, I'm sorry I didn't come t' your door t' say goodbye, but somehow I just couldn't. You're my best friend, and I ain't never gonna have another one like you. After you and me and my fambly's straightened out, I want us t' get together. Hit might be a few years but we're gonna do hit.”

Boy, did I have a lump in my throat now. I was gonna cry for dang sure and I hated it. I looked down at the ground until I thought I could at least say something without bawling. “You my best friend . . . too . . . Fred. We did a lot of things together, and I'll never . . . forget . . . you. It's a long way from here t' our farm, but I'm gonna get back. One of these times I'm gonna get back and we'll have a big time t'gether. You'll see. Whenever you want t' see me, just let me know and I promise I'll come runnin'.”

Fred nodded. “I promise you too,” then he eased off the gate. He put one hand on the gate's top and stuck his other between the slats and we shook. “G'bye old buddy. Tell your folks I said hi and thanks for bein' s' good t' us.”

“G'bye Fred,” I croaked. “Tell your folks I said g'bye too, and that I'll miss 'em.”

I watched him walk until he topped the rise and went into the hickory and locust grove. I felt like crying, but then I thought, this wudn't the end. We were going to be seeing each other off and on all our lives. This was just the start of something different. That made me feel a lot better.

Early the next morning we drove out of the gate to our lane and headed for Indiana.

I
had been driving aimlessly since leaving the university, consumed with memories. I was outside Lexington when I saw a fence row with a type of wild floribunda rose. The farmer on whose fence the roses were growing helped me pick an armload, then I took off, thanking him profusely. Now I knew exactly what I was going to do.

My journey to the Blue Hole took a slow, circuitous route as I checked mailbox after mailbox, still hunting for a name I recognized. No luck. I parked the car at the end of the blacktop and walked through the corn growing on the Little Bend's high bottoms. The blades were already tall and brushed my shoulders. The farmer had planted close to the edge of the cliff and I was careful not to step into a hundred feet of air.

Finally, the high bottom cliff flattened and I turned toward the river feeling certain I was now below the level of the sandbar. When I reached the water, all I could see, up or down the bank, was ordinary mud. The sandbar no longer existed, victim, I guessed, of a heavy flood.

I walked upstream toward the Blue Hole. As I got closer, I started feeling anxious. I had promised myself I wouldn't search for tracks, but to no avail. I would scold myself, then immediately start searching again. A lifetime later and my subconscious wouldn't let go. Sweat was pouring down my face and my T-shirt was soaked. I glanced at my watch. One o'clock. It had to be a hundred degrees and the heat coming off the sand carried hot wet moisture that almost drowned me. No air was moving and the only sounds were the hum of insects.

Then I reached the little knoll. It rose small but proud above the brooding, pool-stage river. I climbed to the top and gazed at its fabled companion. The Blue Hole was absolutely still. Its water looked cool and inviting. I squinted toward the sun, a giant hazy ball of fire—Kentucky in July. Upriver, the brush-clad limestone cliffs and wide, green, mangrove-covered low bottoms shimmered through the heat waves. It reminded me of an impressionist painting.

I looked again at the Blue Hole. Its surface reflected the sky and cumulus clouds . . . cool, enchanted . . . waiting.
All right,
I thought,
enough procrastination, do what you came here to do
. I worked my way through the brush and when I reached the pool's edge, stared at my reflection. My immature cataracts made the image fuzzy so I eased onto my knees.

Hello, Cap'n Rhett, you gray-haired, half-bald, alta kocker!

Then I remembered the picture. I got my wallet out of the hip pocket of my jeans and began digging through credit cards, family pictures, and assorted junk. Yep, there was ten-year-old Samuel Zelinsky. Skinny, long-faced, big-nosed, and trumpet-eared, with shaggy hair and heavy eyebrows that shaded bright, laughing eyes and an impish smile. I held the picture next to my reflection. Little shit was better-looking than me.

I scanned the Blue Hole. It was amazingly beautiful, but in my mind a skeleton hand still lurked in its depths. I felt shaky. I knew what he would say—did say—and my life experiences confirmed he had been correct. It was time to conquer my fear and pay him honors.

I stripped naked. “This swim is for you, Ben,” I whispered. Then, against every instinct, I plunged headfirst into the water.

I felt like I was immersed in an ice bath. Everything was dark and mysterious. The dark terrified me. Then I realized my eyes were closed. I opened them and looked about. The walls were straight up and down. I kicked hard and went deeper. I couldn't see the bottom even when the pressure hurt my ears. I could feel a cold upwelling; the pool was definitely spring-fed.

Air hunger forced me to ascend and by the time I reached the surface I was so in need of breath that my gasps hurt my lungs. I felt great! A conquering hero! “I'm here, Ben!” I shouted. “I'm swimming in it. I came back and I'm swimming in it. Samuel Zelinsky, Ben. You said I would someday and I have. I love you, Ben! God bless you wherever you are!”

The way back to the car was not easy, but incredibly enough, I didn't look for tracks. I walked downstream and, instead of returning as I came, turned inland as soon as the cliffs became low enough that I could labor my way to the high bottoms. I was immediately in a cornfield. This corn was taller than what I had walked through previously, the leaves up to my eyes and the tassels over my head. Then I made the mistake of taking what I thought was a shortcut. One cornfield led into another until I was lost and drenched in sweat from the awful heat. I decided the only logical way back to the car was to walk down the rows.